ICE agents say they mask for safety. The cost may be trust.
For several months now, the Americans have watched while federal law enforcement agents have faced with margins in the neck and hoods, have made arrests related to immigration while the Trump administration requires thousands of these arrests per day to try to respond to its deportation quotas.
The badges and vests of the agents, carrying the initials of law enforcement organizations, can often be seen. But their identity is otherwise unknown.
Although the Trump administration has insisted that masks are essential to security, the masked police forces seem counter -intuitive – if not contrary – in the United States, where the police aspire to a reputation of courage, transparency and adhesion to democratic principles.
Why we wrote this
Masked immigration agents face a decline in a country where people expect the police transparency. Some people argue that in an increased political violence, masks ensure the security of officers. Others say they erude public confidence.
Consequently, an increasing number of communities have started to repel, in the grip with how – and when – their officers will wear masks, and if it is even the democratic thing to do. Masked agents, especially those in simple clothes or the use of unmarked cars, create a climate of fear and resemble a “secret police” force, which erodes public confidence, according to criticism.
The masking, although it is not illegal, “is in direct conflict with our mission to be part of the community and to be transparent”, explains James Dudley, former police officer and 32 -year -old veteran at the San Francisco police service, now a speaker of the Faculty at San Francisco State University.
But “some of the cops who worked for me were doxed and attacked, and there have been telephone calls in the middle of the night when the family responds -“ I will mutilate, dismember and rape; I know your address ”- and all this comes into play.”
Masks have become a trend, both particular and particular, while the Trump administration pushes to keep a campaign promise of the greatest mass deportation in American history.
The application meets resistance
Since January, the administration has targeted more than 10 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States while moving to revoke the legal protections of others. Since then, the data has shown that border passages have dropped, the arrests of immigration and customs application have doubled in certain regions, and the number of people detained is at a record level, according to researchers from the University of Syracuse and the Marshall project.
But the expulsion tactics did not remain undisputed. Ice agents said they were slaughtered, doxed, assaulted and even dragged into the street in a case while a suspect wanted to escape the arrest.
During the first six months of this year, the Ministry of Internal Security recorded 79 assaults against its ice officers, against 10 years previous, according to Fox News.
While federal expulsion efforts are starting to involve more local police officers, the pressure rises for local officers to adopt the masking tactics in certain circumstances. Even after the ban on masks carried by the demonstrators last year, the county of Nassau, New York, moved this month to allow his officers to hide while helping the ice.
“Police services are difficult work,” said Ian Adams, a former police officer from Western Jordan, Utah, and now a criminologist at the University of South Carolina.
“But it becomes extremely difficult if you present yourself in a fire storm where people are angry with the politicians on which you have no control,” he said. “And then you have this understandable reaction,” I don’t want my name to be published on the dark web. “”
A large part of the action takes place because the administration focuses on the workforce on “sanctuaries” cities and states such as California, New York and Illinois, where local authorities often limit cooperation with federal agents carrying out mass deportation arrests. Legal deposits and legislative efforts also dispute the use of masks by law enforcement agents across the country.
A group of 21 prosecutors of the State – all Democrats – urged the congress to adopt a law prohibiting federal immigration agents from carrying masks that hide their identity and forcing them to display the badge or the name of the agency for which they work.
But the police are not the only one to seek anonymity in an increased threat environment. In California, just as legislators proposed a bill “without law on secret police which would prohibit agents from carrying masks, they also try to adopt a bill to make elected officials more anonymous, given an increase in violence with political motivation.
The federal authorities claim that some of their officers face threats and attacks by anarchist groups who have “dox” agents, publishing their names, images, personal addresses and other identification information on websites to embarrass or harass them.
At the Prairieland detention center in Texas, for example, immigration agents were caught in ambush and fell by a group of alleged anarchists on July 4.
“There are threats definitively for the application of laws today which were not relevant in 2015, ’16, ’17, ’18, ok?” said Scott Mechkowski, a retired ice official.
Do masks affect public confidence?
But the question remains on the impact that masks have, both on the morale of the community and the police and on the sense of justice in America.
“This is more distrustful when our law enforcement agents hide their identity,” said Professor Adams, who studies the intersection of technology and the police. “There is a reason why in almost all agencies across America, the name of the officer is there on their chest, a few centimeters from their face.”
Although ICE staff can feel vulnerable due to the advertising of recent arrests, he says, masking could worsen the results not only for public interest, but also for public security – including the security of officers.
Another concern is that enabling law enforcement officials to move anonymously facilitates people to usurp them for harmful reasons.
Last month, the former president of the Minnesota Chamber, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were killed by a man who came to their homes, posing as a uniform police officer.
“The trend [in policing] has been towards more empowerment and ethics, and now you have the federals who say not only that you are not responsible, you are anonymous, and deliberately, “adds Patrick Skinner, a detective of Homicide in Savannah, in Georgia, Police Service.” Without responsibility, everything else is smoke and mirrors. “”
A recent global study of confidence in the police has revealed that it was the highest in two types of societies: autocratics, such as China and complete democracies, such as the United States, where police have been a goal in recent years.
This is the result of public confidence that the police carry out the judicial process fairly. But there is little research on what is happening when this confidence decreases due to a change in spectacular policy, explains Daniel McCarthy, criminologist at the University of Surrey, in Guildford, England.
“In democratic societies, we find that people tend to judge the police by their level of public engagement, confidence, responsiveness and legitimate behavior, as opposed to autocracies, where accent could include some of these factors mixed with deference to the police because of their status,” he said.
In the end, the professionalism of agents, even if masked, is probably essential to know if the administration tactics will retain public confidence.
And even if the Trump administration welcomes such heroic and courageous agents, the operation has led to aggravate morale among some agents, says Mr. Mechkowski.
In public, ice officials painted the threat as coming mainly from demonstrators and democratic leaders.
But some agents are also aware of the potential return of their original communities, he said.
“All of these officers and agents are part of a community somewhere, and this is a very polarizing problem for everyone,” said Mechkowski, former deputy director of the field office for Ice in New York. “Our officers and their families are members of the community – they do not try to tear their community; They try to protect their communities. “
In addition, he says, masked agents “are not worried because they do something illegal, but what happens in three and a half years when Trump is out of his duties?” What happens if the next administration rejects President Trump’s policies and punishes the officers who applied them? he said.
“Politicians come and go. But your work does not do so. “
