What to know about debate over protesters and ICE agents wearing masks amid immigration crackdowns
Chicago – President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly called upon demonstrators of demonstrations to be prohibited and demonstrators whose faces are covered to be arrested, with the most recent push after demonstrations in Los Angeles about immigration raids.
Legal experts have told the Associated Press that there are a variety of reasons why people may want to cover their face while protesting, including to protect their health, for religious reasons, to avoid government reprisals, prevent surveillance and doxing, or to protect themselves from tear gas. The legislative measures that occur in the United States, they say that it is only a matter of time before the question returned to court.
The demonstrators, on the other hand, expressed their anger in the face of images of immigration and customs agents covering their faces during immigration raids and masked officers during Los Angeles demonstrations, describing it as a double standard.
Here are some things to know about the debate on facial masks:
At least 18 states and Washington, DC, have laws that restrict masks and other facial covers in one way or another, said Elly Page, senior legal advisor at the International Center for Non -Lucrative Law. Since October 2023, at least 16 bills have been presented in eight states and congresses to restrict masks during the demonstrations, according to the center.
Many of these laws date back to the 1940s and 1950s when many states have adopted anti-masque laws in response to Ku Klux Klan, whose members hid their identity while terrorizing the victims. In the midst of demonstrations against the war in Gaza and the immigration policies of the Republican president, Page said that there had been attempts to revive these laws rarely used to target the demonstrators, sometimes inconsistently.
Trump’s calls to arrest the demonstrators for having worn masks came while federal agents were seen putting masks while performing raids in Los Angeles and other American cities.
The Democratic legislators of California have introduced legislation to prevent federal agents and local police from carrying face masks in the middle of the concerns that ice agents try to hide their identity and avoid responsibility for potential fault during high -level immigration raids.
The question also appeared at a congress hearing on June 12, when the Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, a democrat, criticized ice agents carrying masks during the raids, saying: “Do not wear masks. Identify who you are. “
Republican federal officials have argued that masks protect agents from doxing. The deputy secretary of the Department of Internal Security, Tricia McLaughlin, described the “despicable” California bill.
Geoffrey Stone, professor of law at the University of Chicago, said that the United States Supreme Court has clearly indicated that the right to freedom of expression includes the right to express themselves anonymously. But he said how it should be applied to the demonstrators carrying masks remains “a question of first unresolved amendment”.
For stone, it raises a key question: why should the mirrors and ice agents be subject to different rules?
“The government does not want them to be targeted because they have embarked on their responsibilities as an ice age,” said Stone. “But it is the same thing as the argument to explain why you want the demonstrators to wear masks. They want to wear masks so that they can do their” work “of freedom of expression correctly. The same justification for officers carrying masks should apply to the demonstrators.”
