“ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence … In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed secret police.”
These aren’t the words of liberal activists or immigration advocates, but of U.S. District Judge William G. Young, appointed in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan. A new bill filed in the Florida Legislature by state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando and state Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, seeks to address this by requiring “covered immigration officers to wear specified visible identification during public immigration enforcement functions” and “prohibits covered immigration officers from wearing face coverings that impair visibility of identifying information or obscure the covered immigration officer’s face.”
Videos from across the country are causing outrage at the violent, unconstitutional behavior displayed by anonymous federal agents and the resulting lack of accountability. In California, a Ph.D. student named Job Garcia witnessed masked officers surround men outside of a Home Depot and smash the windows of their truck. When he approached to see what was happening, the agents shoved him to the ground and detained him for more than 24 hours without telling him why. In another case that made national headlines, masked immigration agents arrested a U.S. citizen during a California raid and drove off with his car while his baby was still strapped in the backseat.
Here in Florida, a massive immigration raid earlier this year saw the indiscriminate detention of over 200 individuals at a work site, conducted by not just federal agents but cooperating state and local law enforcement, many without proper identifying uniforms and while wearing masks, which makes it almost impossible to determine not just the identity but the agency conducting specific actions.
Even the FBI thinks masked ICE agents are a bad idea, issuing a recent memo to other law enforcement agencies warning that impersonators are posing as immigration officers to carry out robberies, kidnappings and sexual assaults in several states, citing five incidents. A recent CNN review found two dozen such incidents in 2025, which range from politically motivated agitators attempting to intimidate immigrants to others using the guise of authority to kidnap, rob, assault or rape victims.
Several of these types of incidents have occurred here in Florida. In April, a man in the village of Indiantown was arrested after impersonating an ICE officer and conducting a fake traffic stop to ask the driver for documents and immigration status. That same month, a man posing as an ICE officer kidnapped a woman and took her to an apartment complex from which she later escaped. In February, an Orlando man was arrested after impersonating a Homeland Security officer and flashing a gun to try and gain access to an apartment unit. A woman was charged with kidnapping and falsely impersonating an officer while committing a felony and robbery in Bay County, after claiming to be an ICE officer to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife.
What is being asked of the Florida Legislature here is very basic. Will they put minimal guardrails on out-of-control immigration enforcement personnel by requiring that they show their faces and properly identify themselves while conducting operations? Will they protect Floridians from impersonators seeking to use the veneer of authority and lack of standards to inflict harm on others?
Protecting civil liberties through these commonsense measures is popular with the public. A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in partnership with the Brookings Institute showed that nearly six in 10 Americans, 58%, agree immigration agents should not hide their identity with masks or use unmarked vehicles, including 84% of Democrats, 64% of independents and even a third of Republicans (31%).
Judge Young’s words warning about rogue immigration enforcement in this country provide some guidance for lawmakers: “I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.”
Thomas Kennedy is a writer and immigration advocate from Argentina now residing in Miami. He has worked with organizations like the Florida Immigrant Coalition and The Immigration Hub, and as an aide in the Florida Legislature. He is on X and BlueSky: @Tomaskenn.
