NEW YORK — In a matter of months, it has become a regular sight around the country — immigration enforcement agents detaining people and taking them into custody, often as public anger and outcry unfold around them. But in the process, something has disappeared: the agents' faces, covered by caps, sunglasses, pulled-up neck gaiters or balaclavas, effectively rendering them unidentifiable.
With the year only half over, the covered face — as deployed by law enforcement in a wave of immigration crackdowns directed by President Donald Trump's White House — has become one of the most potent and contentious visuals of 2025.
The increase in high-profile immigration enforcement was already contentious between those opposed to the actions of Trump's administration and those in support of them. The sight of masked agents carrying it out is creating a whole new level of conflict, in a way that has no real comparison in the U.S. history of policing.
Trump administration officials have consistently defended the practice, saying that immigration agents have faced strident and increasing harassment in public and online as they have gone about their enforcement in service of Trump's drive toward mass deportation, and hiding their identities is for their and their families' safety to avoid things like death threats and doxing, where someone's personal information is released without their permission on the internet.
''I'm sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,'' Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons said last month.
There's pushback, as expected
Democrats and others, including the several state attorneys general, have pushed back, saying the use of face masks generates public fear and should be halted.
In a letter to Lyons last week, a group of Democratic senators said the stepped-up immigration enforcement in workplaces, restaurants and other sites was already causing dismay and the increasingly common sight of masked agents ''represents a clear attempt to compound that fear and chaos – and to avoid accountability for agents' actions.''