By: Michael Bianco, ACLU-DE Intern
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids continue to terrorize immigrant communities across our country and subject our immigrant neighbors to intimidation and abuse. Many of these raids have been marked by the growing use of violence and unconstitutional tactics like racial profiling, sparking critical discussions about transparency and accountability. One dangerous practice in particular continues to make headlines — masks.
Many ICE agents wear masks to hide their identity. Though no formal laws forbid the police and law enforcement from wearing masks at a national level, masked ICE agents have drawn widespread condemnation from community members for setting a dangerous precedent. This criticism has become more prominent in regions like Long Island, where law enforcement officers were granted exceptions from a local mask ban first enacted in 2024.
Let’s talk about a few of the reasons why police wearing masks undermines public safety and our civil liberties.
Police Shouldn’t Operate in Secret.
Law enforcement officers — including ICE and other federal agents — work for us, meaning they need to be accountable to the American people. Wearing masks only serves to weaken trust between officers and community members. If law enforcement hopes to do its job well, it needs to have strong relationships with its community. More importantly, a secret police is antithetical to democratic principles, and our country cannot thrive if threats like a secret police force are looming over us.
Secret Police Make Our Police Brutality Problem Worse
Police brutality has tragically increased since COVID, with 1,365 people being killed in the last year alone, and brutality against immigrants has also become more pervasive. When agents conceal their identities, they are more likely to be emboldened to act more violently and less likely to be held accountable.
We witnessed this with the horrific abuse of immigrants in Chicago during a recent immigration raid. Many people were zip-tied and forced into vans, some without clothes. Almost all of the agents who carried out this raid were masked.
Secret Police Embolden Vigilantes
The use of masks has made it all too easy for ICE impersonators engaging in vigilante activity to threaten immigrant communities. Without proper means of identifying legitimate agents, stopping these impersonators becomes more and more difficult, and our communities remain at increased risk.
Impersonators can also seek to harm or exploit immigrants and other community members, as we saw in Milton, Delaware in June 2025. Two men disguised as agents by wearing masks and vests labeled “ICE” robbed an innocent person at gunpoint. The victim was inclined to believe they were legitimate officers due to the lack of required uniforms or identification.
One Solution: Take Off the Masks
While both abusive officers and impersonators alike should be held accountable, we must take proactive action to protect immigrant communities. The solution is simple — we must mandate ICE agents show their faces.
An example of how this could be implemented is California’s No Secret Police Act. It distinguishes legitimate law enforcement tactics from secret police action, which includes a ban on masks for almost all law enforcement officers. It is set to be enacted by July 1, 2026, at the latest. The bill mandates all officers to wear consistent uniforms and identification that displays their name, badge number, and department.
A proposal for a similar law in Delaware is currently being discussed by the Delaware General Assembly. Our state already took a powerful stand when we banned local law enforcement from formally partnering with ICE, but federal agents can still operate in our state and terrorize our communities. By requiring all law enforcement officers to show their faces, we could see a sharp decline in excessive force and impersonators.
Delaware must continue to take meaningful steps in the right direction by making it clear we don’t want secret police in our state.
DEMAND ACTION: Protect Delaware's Immigrant Communities
We need you to join us in demanding that Delaware’s elected officials act during the 2026 legislative session to protect our immigrant communities. By signing this petition, you are calling up our elected officials to pass legislation to:
- Protect sensitive locations in Delaware,
- Create safe interactions with law enforcement; and
- Prevent racial profiling by law enforcement.
