LA County took the first step Tuesday towards banning immigration officials from hiding their identity with neck gaiters and masks, but it’s not clear that they’ll be enforcing local bans for federal agents.
The county supervisor voted 4-0 to ask his attorney to draft rules banning all law enforcement officials, including local sheriff deputies and federal immigration agents, disguised his identity while working for a part of the county’s unedited version.
It’s a scene that has been repeated over and over since the widespread immigrant raids began in June. Their armed federal agents leapt out of unmarked vans and people arrested with faces hidden by gaiters, balaclava or ski masks, from street corners, car washes, and car parks at home depots. According to filmed videos of these attacks, officers often refuse to identify themselves as working with federal immigration enforcement.
“It’s scary enough to be forced into custody by a federal officer in the middle of the day,” said director Janice Hahn. “It’s even more intrusive to do that by someone wearing a face mask or balaclava, where the name and badge are completely covered.”
Homeland Security Deputy Director Tricia McLaughlin said departmental immigration and agents with customs enforcement or enforcement and removal operations must hide themselves so they do not disclose their identity.
“Politicians in these sanctuaries are trying to ban executives who wear masks to protect themselves from doxes and targets,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “These LA country supervisors have clearly never had ice surgery as officers have verbally identified themselves, worn vests called Ice/ERO or Homeland Security, and are adjacent to the vehicle called the name of the department.”
The supervisor was not convinced.
“An unreasonable search and seizures are what I call it,” Hilda Solis, director who co-authored the motion with Hearn, told a colleague. “I know it’s a violation of our constitution and civil rights.”
The potential impact of movement remains unknown. The law in which county lawyers have two months in the draft applies only to law enforcement agencies operating in unorganized areas where supervisors have sole governmental authority.
Sheriff deputies need to clearly identify themselves in most cases. For the past two months, Sheriff Robertolna has emphasized that his deputies need to be easily identified across the county with patches, six-point star badges and name plates. Hahn said the mask ban under consideration would require exemptions from facial coverings that deputies need as part of their work, such as gas masks, medical masks or undercover disguises.
The Security Bureau did not respond to requests for comment on the claim.
assn. The Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff, who represents the sheriff’s deputies, said they were in discussion with Hearn’s team to ensure that officers could still wear masks if necessary.
“It’s ironic to the same board of supervisors who have now shook 180 degrees,” the statement said in the statement. “I think we all know that the county and the state’s efforts on this issue have impacted the federal government and are primarily done for the show.”
Federal immigration agents have no requirement to comply with the county’s mask ban, according to Kevin Johnson, a UC Davis Law professor who specializes in immigration law.
“The county cannot legally request ice officers without wearing masks under federal jurisdiction,” Johnson wrote in an email. “I believe the principle of federal hegemony requires the federal government to have the power to limit officers.”
This is no surprise to Darwin Harrison, the county’s top lawyer. Darwin Harrison told her boss that the federal government is likely to argue that county laws are unconstitutional.
“It will probably be challenged with the supreme clause,” Harrison told the supervisor.
Hearn said there’s no problem fighting the federal government.
“If we have to meet you in court, we will meet you in court,” she said.
Commissioner Catherine Berger, who was about to vote, questioned the point of the motion to land them before the judge, almost certainly.
“My concern is that it will bring about a motion that is ultimately tied to in courts who doubt that even what we do is legal,” she added that she is worried that this could bring false relief to the scary residents.
Berger said she supported the spirit of the motion and worried that people were too easy to impersonate immigration agents when the actual thing often couldn’t identify themselves. The Huntington Park Police Department arrested a man in late June, believing he was pretending to be a federal immigration agent.
“Perhaps there are countless people who have been sacrificed to prevent them from going to law enforcement because they are afraid to go to law enforcement,” Berger said.
The allegations are one of several pushes by local lawmakers to try to exert any influence on federal agents. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra) has introduced a bill that requires all law enforcement unless masks are covered up. Another bill introduced by state senators Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) seeks to prohibit law enforcement from covering their faces.
Some California Democrats in Congress support a bill that would ban the federal government from covering their faces while raids.
