Exclusive: Democratic lawmakers seek answers from homeland security head about masked Ice agents

Democratic members of Congress are pressing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to reveal information about immigration officers’ practice of wearing masks and concealing their identities, according to a letter viewed by the Guardian.

The letter marks another step in pushes by US lawmakers to require immigration officials to identify themselves during arrest operations, especially when agents are masked, a practice that has sparked outrage among civil rights groups.

Congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the powerful committee on oversight and government reform, along with Representative Summer Lee, wrote to the secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem, pressing for “memoranda, directives, guidance, communications” regarding immigration officers’ use of masks and unmarked cars for immigration operations.

“For every person within the United States, the Fourth Amendment guarantees protection from unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fifth Amendment guarantees a right to due process under the law,” the pair wrote. “In direct violation of these principles, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has allowed its agents – primarily from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) – to conceal their identities and use unmarked vehicles while conducting immigration enforcement activities.”

In recent months, as the Trump administration has escalated immigration enforcement operations, arrests, detention and deportations, the DHS and Ice have been relentlessly criticized for their agents’ use of masks and unmarked cars.

The two Democrats mention a number of examples, from the past few months under the Trump administration, in which immigration officials have hidden their identities while conducting immigration arrests and operations. They also mention a recent example, originally reported by the Intercept, in which two immigration judges in New York concealed the identities of government attorneys pushing to deport people.

“This causes a dangerous erosion of public trust, due process, and transparency in law enforcement,” Garcia and Lee wrote. “These tactics contradict longstanding democratic principles such as the public’s right to accountability from those who enforce the law and pave the way for increased crime, making our communities less safe.”

As the Guardian previously reported, there have been a rising number of people capitalizing on the anonymity of immigration officials. In a number of cases, criminals have impersonated DHS officers in order to rob or kidnap people or – in one case – sexually assault someone.

The use of masks by immigration officials “makes it nearly impossible for individuals to determine whether they are being detained by legitimate law enforcement agents or unlawfully abducted,” the representatives warn.

Garcia and Lee list a number of national examples, including one from Florida from April, in which a woman wore a shirt reading “Ice” and used a handheld radio “to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife, threatening her until she managed to escape”. In another case, the representatives mention a California instance in which teenagers impersonated Ice officers, approached Hispanic victims in a vehicle, showed them fake badges and robbed them.

“These cases starkly illustrate how the use of masks, unmarked vehicles, and minimal identification by actual Ice agents does not just erode trust – it effectively hands bad actors a roadmap to exploit vulnerable communities,” the representatives wrote.

The arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student in Massachusetts, marked an inflection point for these types of arrests and operations under the Trump administration. Video footage showed Öztürk arrested by plainclothes, masked immigration officers, causing widespread alarm at the practice.

Although the practice of Ice officers wearing masks is not particularly new, the practice has escalated under Trump. Immigration officers do not typically wear official uniforms – like local police officers do – unless they are conducting large or potentially dangerous arrests and operations.

A number of lawmakers at the local and federal level have called for Ice to require enforcement officers to display visible identification during arrests. Senators Cory Booker and Alex Padilla introduced a bill earlier this month that would require immigration officers to “display clearly legible identification, including their agency name or initials and either their name or badge number” during operations, and co-wrote a letter to Ice expressing concern with the practice. House members also introduced a similar bill, requiring Ice officers to display clear identification. And an increasing number of states, including California, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, have also introduced local legislation that would require federal officers to display visible identification, with exceptions for safety or undercover purposes.

This month, the head of Ice, Todd Lyons, defended the practice of agents wearing masks, saying: “If that’s a tool that the men and women of Ice to keep themselves and their family safe, then I will allow it.” Lyons said that Ice officers in recent months have faced a rising number of attacks and doxing threats.

Experts warn that masked officers may not only erode trust in law enforcement agencies, but can also allow officers to escape accountability.

Now that Trump’s massive spending bill has passed, the administration is preparing to increase the number of officers and the amount of resources for immigration arrests and deportations, to fulfill its goal of deporting 1 million people each year.