WATCH LIVE: House gavel as DHS funding deadline approaches

WASHINGTON (AP) — Along with smashing car windows, tackling people on city streets — or even detaining a toddler wearing a snow hat with floppy bunny ears — images of masked federal officers have become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.

The House of Representatives is expected to meet at 12 noon EST. Watch the live stream in our video player above.

Never in recent U.S. memory has a U.S. police operation continuously hidden thousands of its officers from the public, a development the Department of Homeland Security believes is important to protect employees from online harassment. But experts warn that wearing masks serves another purpose: to create fear in communities, and risks shattering norms, accountability and trust between police and their citizens.

Whether to ban masks — or allow masks to continue — has emerged as a central question in the debate in Congress over funding for the Department of Homeland Security ahead of a midnight deadline Friday, when it faces a partial shutdown of the agency.

“Humans read each other’s faces, and that’s how we communicate,” said Justin Smith, former Colorado mayor and executive director and CEO of the National Sheriffs’ Association.

He added: “When you have a number of federal agents involved in these operations, and they cannot be identified, you cannot see their faces, it makes people uncomfortable.” “This raises some questions.”

Democrats demand “take off the masks”

Masks on federal agents have been a constant throughout the first year of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.

What started as a disturbing image last spring, when plainclothes officers wearing masks surrounded and detained a Tufts University doctoral student near her home in Massachusetts, has turned into familiar scenes in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. The shooting deaths of two US citizens by federal immigration officers during demonstrations against ICE raids in Minneapolis have sparked widespread public protests and prompted lawmakers to respond.

“Turn on the cameras, take the masks off” has become a rallying cry among Democrats, who also insist that officers wear body cameras as a way to provide greater accountability and oversight of operations.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at the Capitol that disclosure of federal agents is a “strict red line” in upcoming negotiations.

ICE says on its website that its officers “wear masks to prevent documentation, which can (and may) put them and their families at risk. All ICE enforcement officers carry badges and credentials and will identify themselves when needed for public safety or legal necessity.”

Thanks to money from Trump’s massive tax cut bill, which pumped about $170 billion into the Department of Homeland Security, ICE has grown into among the nation’s largest law enforcement operations. Last year, it announced it had more than doubled its headcount, to 22,000 employees, with rapid hiring — and a $50,000 signing bonus. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an email request for further comment.

Most Republicans say the current political climate leaves immigration officers, many of whom are new to the job, exposed if their faces and identities are revealed.

Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said he could not agree to Democrats’ request that officers unmask themselves.

“You know, there’s a lot of bad people out there, and they’ll take a picture of your face, and the next thing you know your kids or your wife or your husband are being threatened at home,” he said. “That’s just the reality of the world we’re in.”

ICE stands apart from masks

It appears that no other police agency in the country regularly uses masks on such a large scale. Instead, masks are used during special operations, especially covert work or sometimes during large crowd control or protest situations, and when there is inclement weather or individual health concerns.

Perhaps only during Ku Klux Klan raids or in the Old West did masking become a more widely used tool, experts said.

“It’s unprecedented in modern American history,” said Noreen Shah of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington.

She said the idea of ​​masked men patrolling city streets looking for migrants could leave people afraid and confused about who they encounter — which she suggested was part of the issue.

“I think it’s calculated to scare people,” she said. “I don’t think anyone feels viscerally that, ‘Okay, this is something we want to have permanently on our streets.’

Near the end of Trump’s first administration, Congress sought to suppress protests after masked federal agents showed up in 2020 to quell protests in Portland and other cities. A provision requiring agents to clearly identify themselves was included in a massive defense authorization bill, which Trump wrote into law.

Last year, California became the first state in the country to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed a lawsuit, saying the state’s policies “create a risk” to clients.

The police are seeking to find a compromise, and supporters say that unmasking is not enough

Smith, of the Sheriffs’ Association, said there is no easy answer to the debate over masking.

He suggested that perhaps a compromise could be found — one that would allow officers to wear masks, but also require their badges or other identifying numbers to be prominently displayed.

While unmasking federal agents would be an important step, other restrictions on immigration enforcement operations may be even more important, advocates said.

They are pressing Congress to limit the ability of ICE officers to rely on administrative detention warrants in immigration operations, especially to enter people’s homes, and insist that such actions should be required using judicial warrants, with the signature of the courts.

There is also an effort to end roving patrols — the ability for immigration officers to use a person’s race, language or place of work to question their legal status, sometimes called “Kavanaugh stops” after the concurring opinion that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed with a Supreme Court decision last summer.

Because Congress gave DHS such strong funding in the tax cuts bill, “that’s why policy reforms are so important now to put the agency in check,” said Greg Chen, senior director of government affairs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who recently returned from Minnesota, said the weight of masked enforcement can be felt in ways that affect everyone — regardless of a person’s immigration status.

“It’s a very intense presence of surveillance and intimidation,” she said. “No one is exempt.”