There is a reason agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) cover their faces during raids and arrests of migrants and criminals who entered the United States illegally.

They don’t want to be “outed” and doxed by gang members and criminal aliens who, seeking retribution, might wish to attack them and their families in their homes.

This is not an unusual precaution for federal agents to take, given the fact that since May, there has been an almost 500 percent increase in assaults against them.

The use of masks and plain clothes by law enforcement officers has precedent. Face masks have been used for decades by officers working undercover or policing thronged events, such as protests. The practice led to lawsuits after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. A new federal law was passed requiring officers to wear some visible identification when responding to a “civil disturbance,” with limited exceptions.

Anybody watching ICE and DHS agents in action can see that the agencies they represent are clearly identified.

That is apparently not good enough for radical Democrats and socialists who want the 12 million or so illegal migrants and criminals who invaded our nation during the four years of the irresponsible Biden administration to remain in the country.

They are incensed that President Trump is doing what he promised on the campaign trail—ordering the mass deportation of criminals and those who broke our laws by entering the nation unlawfully.

As a result, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has on multiple occasions defended officers who wear masks.

“I’m sorry if people are offended by agents wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there, put their safety on the line, put their families on the line, because some people don’t like what immigration enforcement is.

“Two weeks ago, federal agencies were invited to come to Los Angeles, where we ran an operation in which ICE officers were doxed,” said Lyons, explaining that photographs of ICE agents were captured, then used to identify agents and their family members.

“They are wearing those masks because people are out there taking photos of agents’ names, their faces, and posting them online along with death threats to their family and themselves,” Lyons said.

In a recent interview, John Torres, who served as the acting director of ICE from 2008 to 2009, told reporters that when he was at the agency, masks were primarily used by agents working undercover. However, he also noted that today’s widespread use of social media has made the job more perilous for officers in the field today.

“I look at it differently now,” he says. “To see agents wearing masks [in the United States], I think, is a sad indictment on where we are, that the agents have to worry about threats against their lives, against their families.”

Critics have argued that agents concealing their faces diminish accountability and can create confusion and fear at arrests.

I recall reading a story in April about two masked officers who detained two men outside a courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia. The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia protested, arguing that “With no official identification, no demonstration of legal authority, and no stated cause for arrest, this incident is indistinguishable from a kidnapping.”

Another concern is that private citizens could impersonate ICE agents to carry out actual kidnappings or other crimes. For example, a Florida woman faced charges this spring for posing as a masked ICE agent to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife.

I understand all of that, and I acknowledge that there may be some confusion. Still, I fail to comprehend why seeing an agent’s face when they are wearing official ICE, DHS, or ATF attire and displaying official identification is necessary.

There is also this fact: There is no specific federal law mandating that law enforcement officers wear uniforms or have their faces visible during an arrest. FBI agents, for example, are most often in plainclothes.

Even giving those who support illegal immigration the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the Fourth Amendment and its protection of people from “unreasonable searches and seizures,” it is difficult to absolve anybody who attacks law enforcement officers and agents or calls for their injury or death.

A stark example of this was the revelation that Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell publicly posted the names and ranks of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations officials on a public database, an act that Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles called a dangerous act of “doxxing.”

Mayor O’Connell has since asserted the names were posted without bad intentions, but that isn’t good enough for Ogles. He announced the start of a congressional probe into the mayor last week, with the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees seeking documents and internal communications related to the actions taken by O’Connell and his administration in response to an ICE enforcement operation that resulted in nearly 200 arrests.

Here in California, lawmakers are looking to stop local police officers and federal agents from wearing face masks or coverings while carrying out operations in the state.

The “No Secret Police Act” was introduced by Democrats in the state’s Senate last Monday, following criticism that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were trying to hide their identities while carrying out raids in Los Angeles.

Across the aisle, California Republicans criticized the proposal, accusing their colleagues of attempting to “legislatively dox” ICE agents.

“At a time when federal agents are literally under attack in our state, California’s leaders should be rallying behind law enforcement, not seeking to score political brownie-points by putting them and their families at risk with legislation to publicly expose their identities,” Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones told reporters.

The legislation comes amid growing resistance in California to Trump’s plans to carry out what he describes as the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

Thankfully, this bill has zero chance of being enforced as the California Legislature has no authority to impose requirements on federal officers. Still, the mere suggestion of such a dangerous policy is another sign of the left’s disdain for law and order in California.

And the pro-illegal immigration beat goes on. In late May, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called ICE a “modern-day Gestapo,” equating federal police tasked with enforcing laws Congress passed to German police who sent millions of Jews and political opponents to their deaths at concentration camps in the 1930s and 40s.

Last week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sought to protect ICE personnel, regardless of what the agency decides to do with its face coverings.

Blackburn introduced a bill to make it illegal to dox federal law enforcement after Nashville Mayor O’Connell’s dangerous stunt in releasing the names of federal officers involved in immigration enforcement operations in his city.

“My Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act would make this illegal and hold blue city mayors accountable for obstructing enforcement of our immigration laws by putting law enforcement officers in harm’s way,” Blackburn said in a statement.

Nowhere is that obstruction and opposition more vocal than in Los Angeles and other California cities that consider themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal migrants and criminals.

Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom have called President Trump everything from a Hitlerian tyrant to an existential threat to America for following through on his promise to deport millions of migrants who entered the nation illegally.

Opponents of Trump’s policy argue that those who invaded our country during the Biden administration are not strictly criminals.

While unauthorized entry to America may be treated as a civil violation rather than a criminal offense, repeat offenders do face criminal charges.

However, as we have seen with the thousands of illegal migrants who have already been deported, a large percentage of them are repeat offenders, and they became criminals when they repeatedly broke America’s immigration laws.

Those who choose to impede, threaten, or otherwise endanger federal law enforcement officials could themselves become criminals and even wind up serving time in a federal prison.

So, a warning to those who continue to obstruct and dox federal agents who are doing nothing more than enforcing immigration laws passed by Congress: you might want to think twice before impeding ICE, DHS, ATF, DEA, and FBI agents as they go about their responsibilities in administering the law of the land.

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