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Lawmakers in Liberal States Want ICE Agents to Show Their Faces

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Elected officials in New York and California are trying to upend President Trump’s deportation campaign by banning law enforcement officers from wearing masks in public.

Two federal agents wearing masks stand in a hallway outside immigration courtrooms in Lower Manhattan. One wears a vest that says “DEA” in yellow letters. The agent has a badge on his waist and wears a black baseball cap. The other agent wears a vest that says “Police” in green lettering and has a gun holstered at his waist. The agent wears a baseball cap.

July 9, 2025, 7:38 p.m. ET

From New York City to Los Angeles, images of immigrants being handcuffed by armed federal agents who are clad in plainclothes and balaclavas have become an indelible symbol of President Trump’s deportation crackdown.

Now, Democratic elected officials around the nation are coalescing around an effort to disrupt the arrests by prohibiting law enforcement officials from concealing their identity in public.

In California, lawmakers introduced a measure in June that would prevent such officials at all levels from covering their faces on the job and require them to wear uniforms with clear identification. State and city officials in New York on Wednesday said that they would pursue a similar initiative, with the clear target being federal immigration authorities, especially those who occupy the hallways of courthouses waiting to take immigrants into custody.

“We’re in the midst of an autocracy, and we will not stand for it,” said Tony Simone, a state assemblyman and a Manhattan Democrat who drafted the proposal in New York.

Republican leaders seem certain to challenge the plan in court, setting up jurisdictional battles as liberal cities and states endeavor to protect immigrants from the president’s widening dragnet.

In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the effort to unmask federal agents who work for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has undermined their safety.