Lori Falce: Why do ICE officers need masks?

There is a time and a place for masks.

Halloween. Raccoons. A fancy fairy tale ballroom. Completely appropriate.

You should definitely wear one if you’re performing surgery. Do you have a respiratory infection that could infect others? Absolutely.

But in the course of arresting people, is it appropriate for law enforcement officers to wear masks. It depends.

The mask issue in 2025 is not the mask issue of 2020. In that far away time, the left was pro-mask, following guidance about reducing the spread of covid, while the right was anti-mask, adamantly asserting their freedoms.

Today, the issue is about law enforcement officers wearing masks while arresting people. The uptick in immigration arrests and related protests has put a spotlight on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Customs and Border Patrol and others who are part of operations to detain undocumented individuals — or those suspected of being undocumented.

Police officers and other law enforcement have used masks before. However, it is typically an isolated instance. In a large operation, a masked officer might be one who was doing undercover work and couldn’t risk identification. It might be someone attached to a particularly sensitive case. Those situations, however, were historically rare.

In some cases, it is becoming the default. Federal courthouses with immigration courtrooms are seeing more men wearing balaclavas obscuring their whole heads, neck gaiters leaving the eyes visible but nose and mouth covered, even bandanas like old-timey train bandits.

The broad swath of options is part of the issue. There is no standardization to suggest approval, which goes along with the fact that many of the officers are identified poorly. They may wear plain clothes. They may not present paperwork. They may have nothing to give them authority behind their own assertion.

This is different from that previous rarity, where an individual officer’s identity might be protected but the overall presence was clearly signaled and accompanied by paperwork.

There is an obvious problem for the people being detained. How does an American woman of Hispanic background being detained by a man in cargo pants and a dark shirt, his face hidden by a balaclava, know that she is being held lawfully by ICE, being the victim of gang violence or being abducted by a stalker? Short answer: She doesn’t.

The Democratic Women’s Caucus sent a letter to ICE officials, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan this week spelling that out. They demanded ICE agents “visibly and clearly identify themselves” during legitimate activities “to stop enabling impersonators who leverage women’s uncertainty and fear of immigration consequences to rape, harass, and abuse them.”

But there is another danger that should be important to those who support law enforcement as a concept and law enforcement officers who are their family, friends and neighbors. Without identification, hidden behind masks, it seems only a matter of time until someone disputes the authority and fights back.

This is an instance where officers and agents should not hide behind a mask. Instead, if the detention is warranted, that should be the only shield necessary.