Demasking ICE: Immigration advocates rally with elected officials to support legislation

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Dozens gathered outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Philadelphia on Thursday morning to show their support for a proposal in Harrisburg to require ICE agents to take off their masks.

The planned legislation would prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing “masks, facial coverings, or other garments that obscure their identity” when performing their duties. It would also require officers to “wear identifiable uniforms or clothing clearly indicating their department, agency, or affiliation.”

State Sen. Nikil Saval said the legislation is necessary not only to show who is conducting arrests, but also to prevent impersonators.

“It increases transparency and accountability. It protects the rights of all Pennsylvanians to dignity, safety and due process,” Saval said. “It affirms the importance of trust in community encounters with law enforcement officers at every level for the safety of all involved.”

Erika Guadalupe, executive director of the immigrant rights organization Juntos, said the new legislation will make ICE agents less aggressive in their actions.

“ICE is operating with no oversight, emboldened by a fascist agenda and with resources and funding on the scale of entire armies,” Guadalupe said. “Here’s what ICE looks like in our neighborhoods: agents covering their faces in plain clothes, driving unmarked cars, kidnapping people in broad daylight. Those taken have disappeared into the black hole of immigrant detention, which today cages more people than ever before in history.”

“If leaders want to talk about law and order, if that’s really what we’re about, then we need to hold ICE accountable, hold law enforcement accountable and support this legislation,” said Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United. “Any ICE agent, police or sheriff hiding their identity is eroding our ability to live and move freely.”

Adriana George, organizer for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, said she has seen domestic workers stop taking the children they care for outside because of fear of being arrested.

“With the increased ICE threat starting at the beginning of the year, I observed that there were fewer nannies taking kids to the park and fewer care workers taking their clients to enrichment activities in public,” George said. “When I found them, they told me it’s because they were afraid of ICE.”

Danny Bauder, Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO president, held a sign that likened ICE agents to criminals who use face masks to conceal their identities. He said he was “upset and horrified” by the conduct of federal agents, calling the “kidnapping and disappearing” of innocent people “disgusting” and “un-American.”

Bauder added that “copycats” are arming up, “dressing in fatigues and donning face masks to terrorize innocent people.”

Last month, ICE issued a statement claiming there has been an 830% increase in assaults against agents since last year. The statement further accused Democrats and the media of “anti-ICE rhetoric” and referred to incidents in which they say “Democratic members of Congress have been caught red-handed doxing and even physically assaulting ICE officials.”

Todd Lyons, ICE’s acting director, has defended the use of masks, telling CBS News, “I’m not a proponent of the masks. However, if that’s a tool that the men and women of ICE [use] to keep themselves and their family safe, then I will allow it.”