Ever since the Trump immigration raids began in Los Angeles in June, local leaders and community activists have criticized agents for sometimes making it difficult to identify them as federal law enforcement officials or refusing to identify themselves at all.<\/p>\n
Now, an unexpected new group has expressed its own concerns: the FBI.<\/p>\n
Citing a string of incidents in which masked criminals posing as immigration officers robbed and kidnapped victims, the FBI recently issued a memo suggesting agents clearly identify themselves while they\u2019re in the field.<\/p>\n
The FBI explained its reasoning in a three-page document sent to police agencies across the country last month.<\/p>\n
In the memo, the FBI says that criminals impersonating law enforcement \u201cdamages trust\u201d between them and the community and that law enforcement has an \u201copportunity\u201d to better coordinate with their local, state and federal partners. It calls for informational campaigns to educate the public about impostors and for agents to show their identification when asked while out in the field.<\/p>\n
Undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens have been detained by masked people on city streets, in hospitals, courthouses, and outside schools and places of worship over the last several months. California has banned the use of masks among law enforcement agencies, but on Tuesday a cadre of masked agents gathered in an offsite Dodger Stadium parking lot while carrying out more raids.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A man seeking asylum from Colombia is detained by federal agents as he attends his court hearing in immigration court in New York City. <\/p>\n
(Michael M. Santiago \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The FBI\u2019s memo, obtained through a records request by the national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People, was prepared by the New York field office and first reported by Wired magazine<\/a>. It details several instances where people impersonated immigration agents. <\/p>\n In Florida, a man pretending to be an ICE agent kidnapped a woman who was in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. The suspect approached the woman on April 21, claimed he was there to pick her up and showed her his shirt that read ICE, the FBI said. The woman got in the suspect\u2019s car and he drove her to an apartment complex, but she was able to escape.<\/p>\n In August, three men in black clothing and wearing vests robbed a New York restaurant and stole from their ATM. The suspects also beat the employees and tied them up. One of the employees willingly surrendered to the suspects when they heard them identify themselves as immigration agents, the FBI said.<\/p>\n The FBI also pointed to an April social media post where a man wearing a black jacket with an ICE patch stood outside a hardware store to intimidate day laborers. An image circulating on social media matching the description of the incident showed the man also wearing a red Trump hat. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if there is federal law that requires a standard police uniform,\u201d David Levine, a professor of law at UC San Francisco said. \u201cIt\u2019s good practice to have a distinguishing uniform. Because when you have federal agents dressing as ruffians, with scarves over their faces and glasses in a paramilitary fashion, then it\u2019s so much easier for people to impersonate them.\u201d<\/p>\n The FBI\u2019s national press office did not respond to requests for comment, citing the government shutdown in an automated email response.<\/p>\n U.S. Border Patrol march after a show of force outside the Japanese American National Museum where Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a press conference on Aug. 14 in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Carlin Stiehl\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The FBI\u2019s memo arrives several months after masked agents descended on Los Angeles and other cities across the country at the behest of the Trump White House. Multiple undocumented immigrants have died while trying to flee masked agents during immigration raids<\/a>, while others have come under gunfire in their vehicles<\/a> and many more have been beaten by masked agents<\/a> who did not immediately identify themselves.<\/p>\n Levine says it\u2019s a person\u2019s constitutional right under the 4th Amendment to ask a masked, federal agent to identify themselves. <\/p>\n \u201cIt takes a cool head under a tense moment to ask someone, \u2018What\u2019s your name? I can\u2019t see your badge? Can you identify yourself?\u2019\u201d Levine said. \u201cIt\u2019s practically impossible to ask all of that when you\u2019re being thrown to the ground. But you do have the right to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n There are plenty of examples of people impersonating law enforcement in California in recent years.<\/p>\n In April 2018, Luis Flores-Mendoza of Santa Ana<\/a> was sentenced to eight months in prison for posing as a federal immigration officer in an attempt to extort $5,000 from a woman, who reported him to the police. The following month, Matthew Ryan Johnston<\/a> of Fontana was sentenced to two years in federal prison for impersonating an ICE agent<\/a>. In 2023<\/a> and 2024<\/a>, police in Southern California announced arrests in two separate cases where men were accused of impersonating police to conduct traffic stops.<\/p>\n State officials have sounded the alarm as well because of the Trump administration\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n