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I agree that ICE should be allowed to operate openly, under the authority of the president, in any American city. I think the real-time obstruction of their operations is bad (and a calamitous mistake as well).
But allowing agents to wear masks destroys accountability and increases the volatility of every interaction by introducing uncertainty about their authority. Lack of accountability erodes confidence that the government can carry out its commitments, which depresses future cooperation.
On a more visceral level, even the mildest encounter with an armed, masked man is scary as hell. I wager it will badly degrade Americans' view of law enforcement officers if it continues much longer.
I'm sympathetic to the interests of ICE agents: their desire for not just their safety, but the safety of their families. But masks ask too much. The tradeoff isn't worth it, especially when there are alternatives: pursue the threats against agents, investigate, throw the book at the culprits, whatever. But don't empower stare security forces to become a nightmare that no one wants their political opponents to control.
It seems to me that the reasonable compromise is for ICE agents to have clearly identifiable and displayed badges.
I am once again asking for them to have unique hats.
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That would probably be sufficient, though I wouldn't really like it.
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These aren't plausible alternatives when local officials refuse to enforce state and local law. ETA: And federal judges show little willingness to allow prosecutions.
I agree that the intransigence of local officials strengthens the case for allowing masks, but:
Example, the man who threw a sandwich at an ice officer got no charges. The man who bit an agent's finger off does not appear to have been charged. Have local officials charged any of the individuals in Minneapolis who have been engaging in threats, assault, battery, property damage, and disorderly conduct incessantly? Even a single one?
The DHS has referred multiple cases for charges related to threats against the families of ICE agents. In Portland, children and spouses were repeatedly harassed and threatened. No charges were filed. In multiple other cities, protests outside agent's homes, engaging in harassment and disorderly conduct. No charges were filed then either.
I would genuinely like to understand what's been transpiring. I'll be shocked if authorities identified the man that bit the agent's finger off and did not charge him.
I know you can't prove a negative for some of these events, but can you link resources for the others? The DHS referrals or reporting on the harassment and threats in Portland? I'm inclined to believe those occurred, but that prior doesn't give me any sense of the magnitude and won't motivate me the same way that verifiable reports will.
I'll search when I have time, but the easier you make it for me the more likely I am to support your position.
Women, actually, and they have been identified. Federal charges were filed, but I couldn't find any indication of state or local charges. WRT to other things, unfortunately I don't have references to the places I read about them and searching is useless with the terms involved. How about this as a compromise though - I would concede requiring officers to not conceal their identity if protestors were also required not to conceal their identities. Undoubtedly a big reason for lack of charges is an inability to identify the individuals involved.
Interesting. I'll read up on the woman's case.
I am against protesters concealing their identities as well, and would support minor sentencing enhancements for doing so in the commission of any crimes (or any other reasonable way of deterring it).
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Woman. She's facing Federal charges only, and a local Democratic official has called for activists to lie their way onto the jury and acquit her.
https://alphanews.org/local-dem-urges-people-to-act-neutral-to-get-on-jury-acquit-woman-accused-of-biting-federal-agent/
Thank you, I'm looking forward to reading about that.
For what it's worth, the comment I was originally responding to said "The man who bit an agent's finger off does not appear to have been charged" ... implicitly "at all". The local Democratic official's call is execrable, if true, but I think my skepticism has been vindicated.
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This is a problem entirely of the lefts making.
You want to have a good argument for why they shouldn't have masks? Don't be evil.
Harassment, stalking, doxxing, and violence are the tools of evil - and the left feels that way when it happens to those they support.
The need and desire for masks are caused by the actions of the same bad actors demanding that they don't have masks.
You don't like it? Fair - but fix the actual problem first.
I think obstructing ICE operations is reckless, deadly gamble. I think the people that participate share some responsibility for the injuries and deaths over the last year.
Furthermore, I acknowledge and condemn the abuse of on-duty ICE agents. Are you suggesting those incidents justify the fear of harassment, stalking, doxxing, and violence against off-duty officers?
My position, the steelman you asked for, is that we cannot absolve law enforcement officers of all accountability as a precaution.
How many shootings have there been at ICE facilities? More or less than at drug enforcement agency facilities, who often wear masks (and not just in the US either, there's plenty of drug bust photo ops with masked agents in Europe, too)? Enough that it seems reasonable there might be shootings of off-duty agents were their identities more common knowledge?
Also, we do know that people were willing to harass an off-duty ICE officer when they learned what church he preached at. Hell, they didn't even make sure he was actually there before harassing everyone else in the building just for being associated with him.
I agree they face threats to their safety and peace of mind, and that they do not deserve to be harassed outside of work. But I disagree the threat is so great that it's worth the tradeoff in legitimacy. Unfortunately, it's hard to quantify declines in legitimacy, which makes it difficult to gauge where mask supporters stand.
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Copy that.
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Them wearing masks isn't absolving them of accountability.
I would certainly prefer they don't wear masks. But the behavior of "protestors" finding out who ICE agents are and getting into their private lives (most publicly with the Don Lemon church invasion), especially combined with the unwillingness of anyone who opposes Trump to allow any moves against such protestors, demonstrates they have good reason for it.
I propose that, if a government employee's targets can't even identify them, that employee is not accountable in a meaningful sense. A third party can identify them, but it's the target's political opponents, also meaningless.
I agree Don Lemon's stunt was bad, and I'm happy he's being prosecuted for it. But was it even a threat?
Throughout US history, officials have been in the same position as ICE employees: strikebreakers in the late 19th century, DOJ officials in charge of civil rights enforcement, and the varied law enforcement officials that decimated the mafia. All of those officials faced more urgent, demonstrable peril than ICE officers, yet the government protected the officials, they didn't hide them. (With the exception of juries, who are not government officials, and are accountable at least to one another.) Even when judges received death threats and prosecutors were tailed by mob associates, the government didn't conceal their identities, because doing so would have undermined its legitimacy.
Who exactly has not been identifiable by their target? The ICE officials involved in an arrest or detention are all a matter of record, which is available by subpoena should the target initiate a lawsuit.
Sure. But suppose you're a civilian bystander/activist/obstructionist and you've been subjected to unwarranted violence by one of four or five masked ICE guys - even if you can pinpoint which five guys were there at that time via subpoenaed records, you still have no way of pinpointing which actual guy did it should the five close ranks and go Spartacus. I'm sure there are ways out of this still, but it massively complicates the process of getting one's dues.
Has this ever happened?
I believe the reason activists want ICE agents unmasked is so they can engage in more harassment against them in their private lives, and I further believe many in the Democratic establishment are unwilling to protect them from this if and when it happens. So given that, there really needs to be more than a theoretical abuse on the other side.
Get establishment Democrats (including Tim Walz and Democratically-appointed judges) on board with ICE being a legitimate law enforcement agency whose personnel are not fair game, and I'll go back to opposing masks.
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The third party capable of identifying them is in the DHS hierarchy, under the authority of their political opponents. That's a system that can work when there's sufficient trust, but that's not what we have today.
Has anyone not been identifiable when a subpoena has been issued?
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De-masking is obviously a poison pill in this environment. I do agree with you that in a good society they shouldn’t wear a masks. We do not live in a good society. They will be targeted by opposition. It’s a less extreme version of saying Mexican military should demasks and have badges when targeting the Sinaloa Cartel. Obviously Sinaloa would execute entire Mexican military families. De-masked ICE likely see a handful of executions and a lot of annoyance in their everyday life.
We already have checkpoints by the opposition looking for ICE in Minneapolis.
If ICE became a legitimate paramilitary organization with 100k members in some random Arkansas town then we can demask. Where all their families live on a base.
The Mexican military is an ill-disciplined conscript army that loses half its members every year to desertion- the largest part of which is literally just cartels promising better food to soldiers that join already trained.
Mexican marines do the actual cartel fighting- masked and deployed away from their hometowns. They face reprisals but also are literally operating outside of civilian control; the reason they fight the cartels rather than the army is because the cartels have too much influence over the government for forces under full civilian control to be used against them(also, the whole 'half the army leaves to join the cartels for better food every year' thing).
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I'd accept the necessity of anonymizing agents if there were a verifiable history of violence anywhere near the levels perpetrated by Mexican cartels. That appears appears to be about 400 murders alone per year over the last decade. We don't even have to get within an order of magnitude: I'd be more sympathetic if there were a ten or more independently verifiable incidents and for some reason alternative methods of deterrence didn't seem likely to work. I detest the use of masks, but I promise you I am not looking for a reason to lawyer my way out of these conditions.
I've looked for verifiable cases of harassment, stalking or violence against off-duty ICE officers and only found one so far, for threats and harassment, announced today. Perhaps there have been more: I wouldn't be surprised if major media outlets ignored them or applied maximum scrutiny before reporting on them, but I do think the Trump administration would have initiated more investigations and likely secured more arrests.
But from what I can tell, you're asking US citizens to make an enormous sacrifice to combat what evidence suggests is a minor threat, at best. Worse, this is over a year deep into the Trump administration authorizing the practice.
The assumption that Trump would have arrested everyone harassing ICE off-duty is based on your assumptions of Trump's character and the Federal Government's capabilities. Perhaps your assumptions are incorrect here.
There are many people harassing off-duty ICE (does it count when they're at a hotel or is that on-duty? Many hotels have had to close in Minneapolis due to the violence.) There are many people harassing people presumed to be off-duty ICE. The evidence is everywhere. Very few have been arrested, because arrests would depend a lot on local cooperation, which has not been forthcoming.
Videos/evidence of these things:
https://x.com/TRHLofficial/status/2016846295923642848?s=20
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2013178366988345447?s=20
https://x.com/chiIIum/status/2012706153491235169?s=20
https://x.com/Osint613/status/2012780234861326413?s=20
https://x.com/AlphaNews/status/2012610307663802819?s=20
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2011285612402512085?s=20
https://x.com/WellsJorda89710/status/2012413904199061930?s=20
https://x.com/CBPCommissioner/status/2015847860537893029?s=20
https://x.com/camhigby/status/2017764065154895968?s=20
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2018386424739905888?s=20
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2018111147237425556?s=20
Once again, thank you for the links.
I wasn't familiar with the hotel sieges, which are appalling. I don't think masks help with that particular threat, but I understand that your overall point is that there are many people that would like to harass ICE agents, enough that they're willing to harass randos in pursuit of that goal.
Am I right to say that our central disagreement is that masked agents hurt the legitimacy of government? Or perhaps you concede that, but disagree about its significance relative to the importance of protecting agents?
As I've mentioned in this thread, I'd support a variety of laws to deter mistreatment of ICE agents (plus additional funding as needed). For example:
But anonymous law enforcement officers ought to be a last resort. Realistically, it's much worse than that. I'm aware that the substantial contingent of blackpilled commenters here that consider the idea of a free country a hopelessly naive illusion, but I still aspire to it.
Are you willing to move in my direction at all? In order to mitigate the negative effects of masking, would you accept these?
Yeah, I don't see the principle here.
I accept that the government has a monopoly on force under normal conditions. I prefer for this force to be used on bad guys. Bad guys tend to form organizational structures where it would not be uncommon for them to attack law enforcement in revenge. ERO/ICE deals a lot with Cartels and other bad international organizations that have the means and motive to kill in revenge. Apparently leftist/progressives have also turned themselves into an international organization that is motivated to harass and sometimes attempt to murder ERO/ICE.
It has also been very common for law enforcement in all levels of government to cover their faces in the United States of America. The DEA, Portland Police, and Florida police (and many more, this isn't intended to be an exhaustive list, just demonstrating enough that it is wide spread) all do this when they are performing a task with a high risk of retaliation.
I do not remember it ticking people off so much in the past. This isn't new behavior, but the outrage seems new to me. Perhaps I wasn't aware of it before.
As far as moving in your direction, yeah, though it's not a movement because I've already felt this way. Here is what I would like to have change:
How about this as an intuition pump: would it be good if all law-enforcement officers always wore masks?
At several points in this thread, I've tried to make it clear that I acknowledge there are situations where they are acceptable. Some tactical conditions justify them, like SWAT actions and drug raids: that covers the DEA and Florida links you provided. In those cases, the high risk of retaliation comes in the form of credible murder threats. The single failed attack on the Dallas facility notwithstanding, that's not what ICE officers face at the time I'm writing this, as far as I can tell.
I'm not even sure what's going on in the Portland photo: the caption says it's from 2020, so it's hard to tell whether the officers' faces are partially obscured to protect their anonymity or because of COVID. (As an aside, I also agree that gas masks are acceptable for riots.)
I mean that an authority outside Trump's chain of command should have access to information about exactly which agents were present at each operation. Practically speaking, that means it would have to be a Democratic-aligned official, since "non-partisan" isn't really a thing, so add serious penalties for leaks if necessary.
I gather from your final comment on sunsetting that you'd prefer not to interfere with the discretion of law enforcement. I'm sympathetic: for the most part, they know better than civilians when it's appropriate. But I'm not going to surrender my judgement entirely, or this just turns into the red tribe version of submitting to experts.
I think it would be a sad thing because it would indicate that society had broken down to such an extent that a simple traffic cop feared retaliation. But I wouldn't begrudge the officer the use of the mask.
There was also the attack on the Alvarado, Texas facility. And those are the attacks from US citizens on ICE within the past year.
I believe ICE has more reason to fear from Cartels, gangs, and other drug and human trafficking organizations. That they have so far mostly avoided dying by the droves shows that their tactics work. We know how vicious cartels can be. They're not letting ICE alone out of the kindness of their hearts when a few cartel members get deported.
See, the problem I have with this is making an executive who isn't in the executive branch. I have problems with creating positions that are not accountable to the American people in some way.
I don't see it as Red Tribe submitting to experts. It's more just... I'm related to five police officers, two of whom became captains, one of whom went on to a security gig after getting shot. I know there are bad ones, and even the good ones can do bad things. But I also see first hand how miserable the media treats police officers who are doing their best to treat people right and keep the vulnerable safe. I always give police the benefit of the doubt. You might see this as a flaw, but it's my own lived experience.
The largest human trafficking organization in the world has already threatened to prosecute each and every ICE agent for the crime of enforcing the law against human trafficking.
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I don't appreciate the strawman, but I am grateful for the links. I'm looking forward to reviewing them.
You said:
I really don't think I strawmanned you, I was responding to this specific portion of your writing. If I misunderstood your argument, I apologize.
Me: "more investigations ... more arrests"
You: "The assumption that Trump would have arrested everyone".
The whole issue involves adjudicating tradeoffs, which are a matter of degrees. I think it's reasonable to push back on hyperbole.
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Immigration is a massive threat. To humanity and the US not a “minor threat, at best”
Why do you think it matters if 7 year old non-criminal gets deported by a guy whose face he can see or a guy in a masks?
As an American Citizen I feel no threat by ICE. Worse case they grab me for a day then verify I am a citizen. I do not care if I can see their face.
To clarify, the minor threat I was referring to was the demonstrated threat to ICE agents, especially relative to the historic threats against government employees. I recognize that the potential threat is great,but so far, the verifiable dangers have been nonzero, but hardly comparable.
But what is gained by showing their face? The only thing is it changes is people know who they are. Why does that matter for making an arrest?
In the course of human events, government agents have on occasion abused their powers. There is no way to guarantee they will be held responsible for those abuses, but you can guarantee that they will not be held responsible for those abuses by anonymizing them.
Biden broke precedent and the law. I’m down with abuses
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Oh, you sweet summer child...
Bravo! You didn't speak plainly, so I'm not sure whether you're saying "the Trump administration is incompetent", "even if they did try, Dem judges would block them", "there's nothing to investigate, it's all a MAGA lie", or some baroque objection I haven't thought of.
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