LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County leaders want to prohibit law enforcement officers from concealing their identities while on duty, a response to recent immigration raids during which some federal agents refused to identify themselves or covered their faces.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-0, with one abstention, to direct county counsel to draft an ordinance that bars officers, including federal agents, from wearing masks, with limited exceptions such as for medical protection or during undercover operations. Officers would also be required to visibly display identification and agency affiliation while out in public.
Since early June, immigration agents have swarmed Southern California, arresting hundreds of people and prompting protests against the federal raids and the subsequent deployment of the National Guard and Marines. About half the Guard troops and all the Marines were pulled out of LA in recent weeks.
Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the motion, said the raids carried out by the Trump administration have sparked fear and residents have a right to know who is stopping, questioning or detaining them.
“Across the county, people are being pulled out of their cars, beaten, and ripped from their families by men in tactical gear with balaclavas, no badges, and no names,” Hahn said. “That’s not how law enforcement in a democracy should operate.”
Hahn conceded that it is unclear if the county will be able to enforce the law when it comes to actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. “Ultimately, it might have to be decided by a court,” she said.
Legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky said Tuesday that a court could have to decide if the ordinance is interfering with the ability of officers to carry out their duties.
“They key is that it has to apply to all law enforcement. It can’t just apply to federal law enforcement,” said Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.
Administration officials have defended the practice of officers wearing masks, saying immigration agents have faced harassment as they have gone about their enforcement. Officials said agents are hiding their identities for their safety to avoid things like death threats and doxing, where someone’s personal information is released without their permission on the internet.
“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” ICE acting director Todd Lyons said last month.
In the state legislature, a pending measure would ban local, state, and federal police from covering their faces while conducting operations in California. And a similar bill has been introduced into the U.S. Congress by Democratic senators Alex Padilla, of California, and Cory Booker, of New Jersey.
Chemerinsky said the advantage of federal legislation is that it would “clearly be constitutional” because Congress has the power to regulate how federal law enforcement operates.
County counsel has 60 days to submit the draft ordinance to the board for approval.
Supervisor Hilda Solis, the measure’s other co-author, said local officials must set expectations about how law enforcement should conduct themselves while in the county.
“The use of masks, tactical gear, and refusal to show identification is not only alarming and confusing, but erodes public trust and raises serious safety concerns,” Solis said.