Senators introduce a bill requiring immigration agents to show their faces

Senate Democrats are introducing legislation today that would force immigration officers around the country to wear clear identification while making public arrests.

The VISIBLE Act, introduced by Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), would require officers to display their agency name or acronym as well as their personal name or badge number during enforcement actions. It would also prohibit them from wearing non-medical masks or balaclavas that hide their faces. “When federal immigration agents show up and pull someone off the street in plainclothes with their face obscured and no visible identification, it only escalates tensions and spreads fear while shielding federal agents from basic accountability,” Padilla said in a statement accompanying the bill. 

The legislation would apply to a broad group officers from the Department of Homeland Security, as well as those from other federal, state, or local departments that have been recruited to help with mass deportations. In late June, House Democrats introduced a similar bill, the No Secret Police Act, that applies only to DHS officers. (California lawmakers are pushing for legislation that would apply to federal, state, and local officers working in that state.)

Padilla is a notable spokesperson for the VISIBLE Act. The son of Mexican immigrants, he has roots in Los Angeles, which has seen widespread immigration sweeps under the Trump administration. On Monday, federal agents in military green uniforms surrounded a park there on horseback and in armored vehicles, “a show of force akin to a Hollywood movie,” as the Los Angeles Times put it. In June, Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after he tried to ask her a question about immigration enforcement in the city; federal officers pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him, sparking public outcry.

On Monday, Padilla and 13 Democratic senators sent a letter to Todd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), requesting information about the agency’s policy on masking and uniforms. “Storming courthouses, grabbing students off the street, raiding places of work, and sweeping through restaurants at prime dining hours are in and of themselves tactics clearly designed to engender fear and sow chaos in the population. Doing so in plainclothes, with no identification of their name or agency, while wearing a mask designed to obscure the agent’s face, represents a clear attempt to compound that fear and chaos—and to avoid accountability for agents’ actions,” they wrote.

The lawmakers also cited safety concerns and noted that criminals have taken advantage of the chaos by impersonating federal immigration agents. “In one instance in Greensboro, North Carolina, several people were injured when armed individuals, falsely identifying themselves as ICE agents, pushed their way inside a home and robbed the family inside,” they wrote.

The VISIBLE Act would include exceptions for officers who need to mask for their safety, such as to protect themselves from environmental hazards, or to officers working on covert or nonpublic operations. It would apply only to arrests for civil immigration offenses, but not criminal ones.