DOJ Wants Judge To Pause California Laws Barring ICE Agents From Wearing Masks

As the Trump administration repeatedly tells its federal immigration agents that they have full immunity from state prosecution, no matter what offenses they commit while in performance of their duties — a notion legal experts have said is flat-out wrong — the same administration has been fighting a legal battle to overturn California’s recently implemented law banning federal agents from wearing masks to conceal their identities. In November, we reported that the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Golden State over a pair of laws, one that prohibits federal agents from wearing facial coverings, and the other requires them to identify themselves while conducting their duties. On Wednesday, the DOJ was back in federal court, asking a judge to pause California’s new law, claiming that it gets in the way of agents doing their jobs and allows people to doxx them and show up at their homes.

From ABC 7:

The attorney for the federal government said this is an attempt to regulate federal law enforcement officers. He claimed people are tracking and doxxing ICE officers, and there has been an 8,000% increase in threats made against them.

“People are using facial recognition, they’re using all kinds of sophisticated AI platforms to identify these people in real time, identify our agents, and then to show up at their homes and harass them. That’s what this is about. This is about protecting the safety and privacy of our agents,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

If you’re like me, you’re currently Googling “protester shows up at ICE agent’s home,” only to find there have been no reported incidents of that happening. What is true, however, is that some federal agents have reportedly been doxxed. In fact, the Independent recently reported that the “details of thousands of alleged ICE agents and Border Patrol employees have reportedly been leaked to an online watchdog group following the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.”

Here’s a question the government refuses to ask itself, though: Why is this all happening now?

After all, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was established in 2003, and in more than two decades, we haven’t seen constant — often massive — anti-ICE protests the way we’re seeing them during President Donald Trump’s second term. Granted, in 2003, we didn’t have artificial intelligence tools or an information highway as developed as it is now, but we still had boots on the ground and the ability to make protest signs. So, what’s with this new anti-ICE phenomenon?

Perhaps it’s because of the wealth of recorded evidence we have seen that shows ICE and Border Patrol terrorize communities, while the government persistently claims it’s the agents who are under siege, but can never seem to provide much evidence of said siege. Meanwhile, federal judges are out here releasing video evidence that shows agents are lying about being attacked, and are actually initiating the physical clashes with protesters. Maybe so many people hate ICE now because never before have we seen the government deploy enough federal agents to a city to outnumber the city’s local law enforcement. Never before have we seen a president threaten entire states with a “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION,” as he ramps up his deployment of federal officers almost exclusively to Democrat-run cities and states, and never before have we seen a president make it more obvious that xenophobia and white nationalist bigotry are the core driving forces behind his mass deportation agenda, which has agents dragging people out of their vehicles, spot-checking brown people for legal documents, busting into hospitals and workplaces to make warrantless arrests, deploying tear gas near residential areas and schools, and continuing to do so even after federal judges order them not to, Perhaps it’s because immigration agents are now out here shooting and killing people.

And maybe the reason so many people are against federal agents wearing masks is that they’re doing it for the same reason Klan members wore hoods.

We recently reported that polls taken this month consistently show most Americans disapprove of how ICE is doing its job, including but certainly not limited to the senseless killing of Renee Nicole Good, which means most Americans aren’t buying the Trump administration’s propaganda.

Regardless of how things shake out legally in California, the reality is that the whole issue with agents and their masks is only a symptom of a much larger issue. The government will tell you the larger issue is agents being harassed and placed in danger, but community members, protesters and the scores of Black and brown migrants being terrorized will tell you the agents are the danger — and there’s no masking that.

SEE ALSO:

6 Prosecutors Refuse Demands To Assassinate Renee Good A 2nd Time

DHS Claims ICE Agent Was Attacked Before Shooting Migrant