“Sowing Fear”—The Legal Battle Over Masked ICE Agents

Look at this story from a century ago in 2021.

Police Accused Of Beating Protesters Avoided Consequences By Hiding Badge Numbers, Not Turning On Cameras: Report.

The fantastical premise here is that it’s controversial for an officer—a public servant who’s allowed to arrest or shoot people—to hide their identity. Much less behind masks or in unmarked vehicles, as ICE agents do.

Around the country, states have passed laws requiring federal agents to clearly reveal their identity. The Trump administration has sued to have these laws overturned. Its latest target in the courts is New York State, which recently passed a statute forbidding state and federal law enforcement agents from concealing their faces.

The Trump administration sued New York on June 23. The state countersued, to defend its new law, later that day.

“By hiding their faces and refusing to wear identification, federal immigration officers endanger New Yorkers and intentionally evade accountability,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Our communities should not have to live in fear of being disappeared by unidentified masked agents. If the federal government wants to brazenly defy our laws, then we will fight tooth and nail in court to ensure transparency and keep all New Yorkers safe.”

Earlier that month, White House “Border Czar” Tom Homan had threatened Governor Kathy Hochul (D) with a surge in ICE activity. “I made her a promise: you’re going to see more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen in New York City, and it’s coming,” he said.

The federal government’s lawsuit claims New York is threatening the officers’ safety. “Law enforcement officers risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe, and they do not deserve to be doxed or harassed simply for carrying out their duties,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in an accompanying press release. “New York’s anti-law enforcement policies regulate the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents. These laws cannot stand.”

The Trump administration’s apparent outrage runs counter to the fact that law enforcement officers have, until recently, been expected to reveal their identities in all but very narrow scenarios, such as undercover work. That’s been the case since the start of modern policing.

“When you look at the history, public servants had to be accountable and revealing their identity is critical to accountability,” Josh Parker, deputy director of policy for the Policing Project at the NYU School of Law, says.

“Hiding behind masks? This is the kind of policing that occurs in coercive, authoritarian regimes: the KGB, Nazi Germany, the Stasi,” he said.

“It’s clearly just an intimidation tactic,” Parker adds. “It’s sowing fear, having someone in plain clothes, masked, aggressively approaching people.”

Law enforcement masking additionally seems to have facilitated a spike in people impersonating federal officers, for example to commit robberies. “In 2025 alone there were 31 cases of people posing as federal agents,” Parker says. “There had been five [on average] the years before.”

He also notes that no other branch of work in the criminal-legal system allows for anonymity. “Imagine if a judge or legislator remained anonymous. Public servants with so much power over people’s lives cannot hide their identity.”

Lieutenant Diane Goldstein (Ret.) served with the Redondo Beach Police Department in California for 21 years, and is now the executive director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), which advocates for drug-policy and justice-system reform. She says that officers who hide their identity violate basic tenets of accountable policing.

“First and foremost, accountability and transparency, they undergird the entire legitimacy of the criminal justice system, not just policing,” Goldstein says. “Policing requires accountability and transparency. Period.”

One of the reasons officers shouldn’t hide behind masks or “investigations” that conceal the truth, she continued, is that work such as preventing and investigating acts of violence is radically undermined when the public doesn’t trust authorities.

“In standard policing, even if the officer’s name isn’t obvious, there’s a badge number. That’s how you can file a complaint,” Goldstein says. “The Houston shooting [of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo], it’s predictable. This is the lack of accountability and transparency, with the masking and the intimidation. And it’s absolutely crazy they continue to say, Our officers need to be masked so they don’t get doxxed.”

*A version of this story first appeared on Filter.