With more immigration enforcement activities being discovered daily in Southern California, state lawmakers are pondering how to identify officers to ensure surveillance while stopping fraudsters.
Countless videos of the apparent ice attack showed federal agents covering their faces and wearing regular clothes without badges or ID, leading to protesters calling detention “illegal abduction.”
Even Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass said he doesn’t know the identity of the federal agents who are detaining people.
“Who are these people?” Bass asked at a press conference last week. “I don’t know who these armed men are. They appear without uniforms and are completely masked. They refuse to give them IDs and drive regular cars with windows and sometimes out of state license plates.”
The confusion over masked agents has prompted State Sen. Sash Renee Perez to request that law enforcement agencies operating in California require law enforcement to clearly display an identification characterized by either a name or badge number.
“It’s clear that we need to protect Californians. That means knowing who is actually carrying out immigration enforcement on our streets and keeping them accountable,” Perez said at a press conference Monday.
She emphasized that expanding existing laws is particularly vital as criminals seek to exploit vulnerable communities under the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation efforts.
Even before the public ice attack began this month, state officials urged immigrants to pay attention as fraudsters pretended to demand money and sexual favors from federal agents.
Perez said the amended law would also prevent bounty hunters from engaging in any form of immigration enforcement.
“The No Vigilantes Act aims (for sure) that those who are enforcement in California are actually the ones they say,” she said.
It is not clear whether state law applies to ICE agents as a constitutional superiority clause. The constitutional superiority clause points out that federal law is considered the highest level of state law if federal agents are fulfilling obligations approved by federal law, such as the Department of Homeland Security.
Perez’s office admits that the state cannot enforce the federal government, but said it would help local police “verify the identity of all law enforcement agencies” when they investigate to establish whether the person is a suitable federal authority or a fraudster.
Last week, Bay Area state lawmakers introduced SB 627, The Secret Police Act. This would be a misdemeanor for police officers, including federal agents, to wear white face coverings with the public. The proposal also aims to stop federal agents and local police officers from wearing face masks amid concerns that ICE agents are trying to hide their identity.
Republican federal officials claim that Musk will protect agents from doxing. Homeland Security Deputy Director Tricia McLaughlin called the California bill “demean.”
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