Masked ICE Agents ‘Are Operating Like a Secret Police Force On U.S. Soil,’ House Members Say

Lawmakers note that bad actors have also exploited ICE's anonymity and impersonated agents in order to commit serious crimes, including sexual assault and robbery.

U.S. Representatives Robert Garcia (CA-42) and Summer Lee (PA-12) are among the latest voices to condemn the Trump administration’s terrifying pattern of masked immigration arrests, writing in a letter to DHS that its mass deportation agents “are operating like a secret police force on U.S. soil.” 

In their letter to Sec. Kristi Noem, they note “alarming” incidents in major cities including Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago where anonymous federal agents have stomped on due process rights of undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike and left communities shaken.

In just one incident in the greater L.A. area, Narciso Barranco, the hardworking father of three U.S. Marines, was brutally assaulted and kidnapped by masked men while working a landscaping job outside of a local IHOP.  "As he worked, he noticed masked men approaching him,” one of his sons recently testified to Congress, “and was quickly surrounded by men who did not identify themselves and never presented any type of warrant.” Horrific footage captured by a bystander showed the masked men holding the father to the ground while one repeatedly punched him. Barranco, 49, was finally released last week after three agonizing weeks separated from his loved ones.

“While there may be some legitimate reasons for law enforcement to take steps to conceal their identities, such as undercover work,” Reps. Garcia and Lee caution, “those reasons do not apply when ICE and other DHS agents conduct mass arrests of undocumented people—many of whom have no criminal records or criminal convictions—as part of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.”

It’s a matter that should concern everyone that cares about personal freedoms. When federal immigration agents abuse their power by anonymously detaining both immigrant community members and the U.S. citizens standing up for them, it undermines the rule of law and endangers public safety for everyone, as attorney and commentator Raul A. Reyes noted at The Los Angeles Times last month. Keep in mind that some ICE agents don’t believe this approach is helpful and are considering leaving as the agency’s upcoming hiring surge could attract some of the actual worst of the worst. But, hey, mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller and Noem have sent their orders.

“The practice gives impunity to agents to make unlawful arrests, without the possibility of public accountability,” Reyes wrote. “Masking can also be seen as a show of intimidation by immigration agents — whether their target is an undocumented migrant or an American citizen, like Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested outside a New Jersey detention facility in May. Masked ICE agents give the impression of being a secret police force, which is not good for our democracy.” 

In another example noted by lawmakers, Brad Lander, Comptroller for New York City, was roughhoused and detained by masked men while attempting to accompany a man who was just trying to follow the rules by attending his immigration courthouse date. “The Trump administration has been very clear that they are looking to stoke conflict, weaponize fear, and undermine democracy, and here they are doing it,” Landers said.

Predictably, actual public safety threats have been attracted to ICE’s anonymity like a moth to a flame. Reps. Garcia and Lee note “several documented incidents in which individuals posing as ICE agents have leveraged the opacity and fear surrounding immigration operations to commit serious crimes.”

“On June 8, 2025, in Philadelphia’s Mayfair neighborhood, a man wearing a tactical vest labeled ‘Security Enforcement Agent’ and a mock badge, armed with a handgun, entered an auto repair shop, restrained a female employee with zip ties, and stole about $1,000. Prosecutors later identified this as directly exploiting the ambiguity of masked ICE-style operations.” In Florida, one individual wore a fake “ICE” shirt and kidnapped her ex-boyfriend’s wife. Because the victim is in the process of becoming a legal resident, she felt she had no choice but to get in the assailant’s vehicle, the Bay County Sheriff's Office said.

And in several instances, men have exploited ICE’s anonymity in order to sexually assault, or attempt to sexually assault, a number of women who believed them to be immigration agents. In late January, a North Carolina man threatened to deport a woman unless she had sex with him, WBTV reported. In New York City, a man also impersonated an immigration agent in order to attempt to rape a woman in Brooklyn Heights, CBS News New York reported in February. “Sources say when he approached the woman he said ‘Immigration,’ adding he did not hold up a badge or any type of identification.”

“These cases starkly illustrate how the use of masks, unmarked vehicles, and minimal identification by actual ICE agents does not just erode trust—it effectively hands bad actors a roadmap to exploit vulnerable communities,” lawmakers continued.

During Trump’s first term, a report from the Immigrant Defense Project’s ICE Out of Courts Coalition revealed a nearly 80% surge in the number of abusers who were weaponizing deportation threats against their victims. Deportation fears were also having a profound effect on community safety, by dissuading victims of crime from filing reports with local police. In 2017, then-Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo noted “a 42.8 percent drop in the number of Latinos reporting rape to his department compared to the same period last year.”

ICE is defending its policy by claiming that masking is needed in order to protect the safety of agents. But as Reyes notes, “the overwhelming majority of police officers, sheriffs and FBI agents fulfill their duties without concealing their faces. Correction officers who deal with prisoners do not wear masks, nor do judges who administer our laws. Because these public employees have such tremendous power, their roles require full transparency.” 

And remember that grand juries have refused to indict a number of protestors for alleged attacks on ICE agents during the Trump administration’s invasion of L.A. "The agent lied and said he was in hot pursuit of a person who punched him," one attorney said. "The entirety of the affidavit is false."

“The safety issue is just an excuse,” retired California police supervisor Diane Goldstein tells USA Today. “The administration doesn't seem to understand that it's their heavy-handed tactics that are increasing the level of danger to their officers. They are pissing off ordinary Americans." 

As we’ve been warning, anti-immigrant attacks were just the tip of a very dangerous spear for American democracy and Americans’ rights and liberties. With ICE now set to receive funding that’ll transform the agency into the largest law enforcement apparatus in the country, it’s not only immigrants who will “now live with the very real threat of being snatched from their homes by masked agents of the state and prosecuted by lawyers who refuse to give their names,” as American Immigration Council’s Dara Lind writes.

“Americans didn’t vote for men in masks and tactical gear brandishing guns and dragging people out of their cars to disappear them or ICE operating with total impunity, and with political retribution on their mind,” America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas said earlier this month. “As citizens of this nation, we must understand that when we allow one person’s rights to be violated, our collective rights are in danger. How can we trust that this administration will protect our rights or focus on actual public safety threats? The evidence is there in front of us – they are willing to go to any lengths to fulfill their mass deportation fever dreams.”