Ice chief says he will continue to allow agents to wear masks during arrest raids

The Guardian

21 hours ago

The head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Sunday that he will continue allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids.
As Donald Trump has ramped up his unprecedented effort to deport immigrants around the country, Ice officers have become notorious for wearing masks to approach and detain people, often with force. Legal advocates and attorneys general have argued that it poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear.
On Sunday, Todd Lyons, the agency's acting director, was asked on CBS Face the Nation about imposters exploiting the practice by posing as immigration officers. 'That's one of our biggest concerns. And I've said it publicly before, I'm not a proponent of the masks,' Lyons said.
'However, if that's a tool that the men and women of Ice to keep themselves and their family safe, then I will allow it.'
Lyons has previously defended the practice of mask-wearing, telling Fox News last week that 'while I'm not a fan of the masks, I think we could do better, but we need to protect our agents and officers', claiming concerns about doxxing (the public revealing of personal information such as home addresses), and declaring that assaults of immigration officers have increased by 830%.
While data from January 2024 to June 2024 does show 10 reported assaults on Ice officers compared to 79 during the same period last year, those six months have also seen Ice agents descend in record numbers on streets, businesses, farms and public spaces, rounding up and detaining mostly Latino people as part of a massive Trump administration push to rid the US of as many as 1 million immigrants every year.
Videos have flooded social media showing Ice agents wearing masks over their faces, detaining people without immediately identifying themselves, refusing to answer questions or explaining why people are being detained, and pushing them into unmarked cars with tinted windows.
'I do kind of push back on the criticism that they don't identify themselves,' Lyons said. 'Men and women of Ice, and our DoJ partners, and local law enforcement partners who do help us are identified on their vest.' The only identification many agents wear is body armor marked with the word 'police', despite not being police officers.
The interview was described as the first major network sit-down at Ice headquarters in Washington.
Lyons also confirmed in the interview that Ice obtained and is using Medicaid data to track down immigrants believed to be in the US unlawfully, despite undocumented people not being eligible to receive Medicaid.
White people comprise the largest share of Medicaid recipients, at 39.6%.
A June report from the Pew Research Center found that 84.2% of Medicaid recipients are born in the US, 6.6% are naturalized citizens and 9.2% are foreign-born non-citizens authorized to be in the US.
As well as the tens of thousands of arrests, there have been several reported cases of masked criminals posing as Ice officers, such as a man in Raleigh, North Carolina accused in January of kidnapping and raping a woman, threatening to deport her if she didn't comply, or a man in Brooklyn attempting in February to rape a 51-year-old woman. In April 2025, a Florida woman posed as an immigration officer to briefly kidnap her ex-boyfriend's wife from her job.
Ice agents have also been reported to overstate assaults, such as in New York City mayor candidate Brad Lander's arrest by immigration officers, where Lander was accused of assaulting officers despite charges being dropped later that day.
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Critics say using a mask allows Ice agents to obscure accountability and avoid transparency for their actions.
'The use of masks is one among a panoply of legal issues presented by the administration's recent actions against immigrants and visitors (and some citizens) but a significant one that can – and should – be immediately addressed and remedied,' said the New York City Bar Association in a statement on the practice.
A coalition of 21 state attorneys general, including New York's Letitia James, wrote to Congress last week urging it pass legislation prohibiting 'federal immigration agents from wearing masks that conceal their identity and require them to show their identification and agency-identifying insignia'. In California, state legislators last month proposed the No Vigilantes Act, which would require federal agents to provide identification, including their last name and badge or ID number.
'We have a Los Angeles Police Department that has to deal with crime in this city every single day – and they're not masked, and they stay here,' said the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, in a Sunday interview with ABC News.
'I don't think you have a right to have a mask and snatch people off the street.'