WASHINGTON (AP) — Beyond the car windows being smashed, people tackled on city streets — or even a little child with a floppy bunny ears snowcap detained — the images of masked federal officers has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
Not in recent U.S. memory has an American policing operation so consistently masked its thousands of officers from the public, a development that the Department of Homeland Security believes is important to safeguard employees from online harassment. But experts warn masking serves another purpose, inciting fear in communities, and risks shattering norms, accountability and trust between the police and its citizenry.
Whether to ban the masks — or allow the masking to continue — has emerged as a central question in the debate in Congress over funding Homeland Security ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline, when it faces a partial agency shutdown.
“Humans read each others’ faces — that’s how we communicate,” said Justin Smith, a former Colorado sheriff who is executive director and CEO of the National Sheriffs’ Association.
“When you have a number of federal agents involved in these operations, and they can’t be identified, you can’t see their face, it just tends to make people uncomfortable,” he said. “That’s bringing up some questions.”