Armed and masked

As local police increasingly use body cams, federal agents are hiding their identities. And they're being ordered by Stephen Miller to "go after" immigrants working at Home Depot and 7-Eleven.

For months we’ve watched alarming images on television and on social media of masked federal agents, grabbing people off the streets or showing up at homes, offices or shops to arrest people, all part of Donald Trump’s mass deportation purge.

In a country in which local and state police wear a nameplate, have a badge and often are equipped with body cams—all of which identifies them and records their actions—federal agents under Trump, as The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last notes, are increasingly operating as “secret police.”

it’s not just ICE, as the Department of Homeland Security is being assisted by agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, among others, to round up immigrants.

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A viral video last week showed a man questioning FBI agents on Martha’s Vineyard—where agents from ICE, the FBI, and the DEA arrested 40 allegedly undocumented people—who refused to say why they were wearing masks.

Congressman Dan Goldman of New York, whose New York City office is in the same Manhattan federal building as the immigration court and ICE offices, held a press conference last week blasting this as “Gestapo-like behavior.”

He explained that there were a dozen plainclothes ICE agents, many who had masks ready to put on, waiting for immigrants coming out of their regularly-scheduled court appearances.

Goldman said he confronted ICE agents, asking why they’re wearing masks.

I was a federal prosecutor for ten years. I worked with Department of Homeland Security, I worked with ICE agents, I worked with Homeland Security’s investigations. I have never seen any plainclothes officer wearing a mask. And I asked them, “Why are you wearing a mask?”

One agent responded that “it’s cold,” while another admitted he was trying to hide so as not to get caught on video. Goldman stated:

And my question to them is: If what you are doing is legitimate, is lawful, is totally above-board, why do you need to cover your face?

Law enforcement officers do not cover their face.

And in fact the Trump administration is cracking down on universities for allowing protesters to wear masks.

So apparently it is not okay to wear a mask if you are protesting the government. But it is okay if you are the government to wear masks in order to shield your face from the public.

In an interview with CBS News New York, Goldman reiterated what he’d said at the presser, about the fear and intimidation the agents created, as the immigrants are making sure they’re following all the right procedures, making their court appearances.

These are people seeking legal status here the right way. None of these people are criminals, none of them are murderers or child rapists. None of that.

It creates really perverse incentives. So other people must react to this and say, well, if I go to court, I'm gonna get picked up and kicked out, so I'm not gonna go to court, and I'm gonna go further underground, and I'm not gonna pay taxes through my work visa, and I'm not gonna pay social security ... which creates more desperation.

Meanwhile, the Acting Director of ICE, Todd Lyons, responding to the outrage about the mask-wearing FBI thugs on Martha’s Vineyard and throughout Massachusetts, was indignant at a press conference in Boston on Monday, rushing to offer an explanation for why the agents are wearing masks: A fear of doxxing. He claimed that the agents have been “targeted” with death threats after their identities were shared.

But Lyons pointed to only one case, the details of which are pretty sketchy.

He said there had been an “arrest” of someone who allegedly took photos of the “names” and “faces” of federal law enforcement during an ICE “operation” in Los Angeles last month, and posted them “online” with death threats. Lyons said the person also used photos of agents’ families too, including their children, “posting their kids’s Instagrams, their kids’ Facebooks,” and made threats against the children too. He then challenged the media in the room who were asking questions:

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.

Is that the issue here that we’re just upset about the masks? Or is anyone upset about the fact that ICE officers’ families were labeled terrorists?

But searching around, I found no news reports about an “arrest” made of anyone who posted any threats “online,” which of course could become viral and spread far and wide, nor did I find any reports of ICE agents’ kids’ Instagram or Facebook accounts being posted. It could very well have happened, but oddly, there’s nothing that’s been reported about it.

There are reports in the media about a man who allegedly put up paper flyers with photos of ice agents around Los Angeles neighborhoods, tacked onto trees and outdoor poles (though there’s no report that ICE agents’ family members were exposed in this way). ICE agents stormed the home of the parents of the suspect last month in a pre-dawn raid that stunned his elderly parents and the neighborhood. But the man was not there; his parents said he’d relocated to New York. It doesn’t appear that any arrest has since been made.

As far as I can tell, there were no other cases of doxxing of federal law enforcement or their families (and putting fliers up isn’t the same as posting information online). Nonetheless, doxxing law enforcement or their family members is wrong, and, if accompanied by threats of violence, it’s a crime. But it doesn’t appear something like this is widespread regarding ICE agents.

And no matter what, it’s not an excuse for federal law enforcement to wear masks.

If this were an acceptable reason, then all local law enforcement should be able to wear masks and cover their badges, since there’s always someone who’s not happy with the cops and might dox them. Anyone engaged in doxxing should be investigated and charged with a crime if there’s a violent threat. But if you’re fearful of the public, you shouldn’t be in law enforcement.

The true reason the Trump administration has federal agents wearing masks gets back to what Representative Goldman said: Instilling fear. It’s meant not just for migrants, but for all of us. They want us terrified, and they’re sending a message that they’ll come for all of us—Gestapo-like behavior, as Goldman says.

And apparently, even the agents themselves are being threatened—by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who wants them to become even more brutal. According to the Washington Examiner, which is a conservative, Trump-friendly publication, “trust has eroded as some high-ranking [ICE] employees feel they are being closely monitored by the White House” regarding mass deportations:

“They’ve been threatened, told they’re watching their emails and texts and Signals,” the first official said. “That’s what is horrible about things right now. It’s a fearful environment. Everybody in leadership is afraid. … There’s no morale. Everybody is demoralized.”

ICE’s top 50 field officials were summoned to Washington with a week’s notice for an emergency meeting in late May, where, the Examiner confirmed, Miller met them.

“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,” said the first official, who spoke with those in the room that day.

Miller was furious when one official defended ICE’s work by saying they’re going after criminals—just like border czar Tom Homan and Trump himself have claimed they are doing, and like Trump said over and over during the presidential campaign—after Miller asked why they weren’t picking up undocumented immigrants who are working in chain stores and who aren’t criminals.

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” the official recited.

One of the officials in attendance stood up and stated that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House had publicly messaged about targeting criminal illegal immigrants, and therefore, ICE was targeting them, and not the general illegal immigration population.

“Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re going after criminals?’ Miller got into a little bit of a pissing contest. ‘That’s what Tom Homan says every time he’s on TV: ‘We’re going after criminals,'” the ICE official told Miller, according to the first official.

The Examiner reports that in the meeting's aftermath, ICE announced a “leadership realignment to support its increasing operational tempo.” In other words, people are being fired as frustration is building within the administration.

The pressure is on ICE to round up more people. It was of course never about getting only criminals—even if some at ICE itself drank that Kool-aid, like many Trump voters—and it’s not surprising that some agents might want to cover their faces in shame as they intimidate people.

All of this tells us that, as the administration continues to fail—whether by facing pushback in court, seeing resistance in its ranks or because of its own incompetence—it will also become more desperate and more dangerous.