Without warning — even to local police — masked federal agents have been captured on video descending on Southern California businesses, getting out of unmarked or lightly marked vehicles and, swiftly, detaining who they suspect are immigrants without legal status.
The videos show officers, also wearing T-shirts, jeans and hats with the only indication at times of their law enforcement status an olive green vest with “Police” or “Border Patrol” written in small yellow letters on the back.
On June 22, more than a dozen agents, mostly in plainclothes, arrived at the Bubble Bath Car Wash in Torrance, California, and quickly put two employees in handcuffs before shoving the owner and questioning a third employee, according to videos posted on social-media and news reports.
Police agencies in Southern California say during these immigration raids even they aren’t always getting any warning.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo said the lack of identifying logos and communication with local officers creates potential problems.
“To have federal agents come into our city and not notify our Police Department, draw their weapon for taking a picture and do so without identifying themselves as law enforcement in unmarked vehicles and out of uniform creates a dangerous situation,” he said.
The mayor was reacting to this: On June 18, cellphone video shows an apparent immigration officer stepping out of an unmarked car and pointing a handgun at a person just for taking pictures. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, posted a video of the confrontation on YouTube.
“This is potentially going to cause, and is causing, very dangerous situations for municipal police officers,” Gordo said. “It’s unacceptable and must stop. We can’t put the public in danger like that.”
Local police agencies have maintained that they are not involved in any immigration enforcement, but some, like the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and others have been out for anti-immigration-enforcement protests.
“They show up without uniforms,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a news briefing last week outside Dodger Stadium, which was momentarily visited by Border Patrol agents before the team said it shooed them away. “They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID. Who are these people?
“Are they bounty hunters?” the mayor said. “Are they vigilantes? If they are federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?
“You can imagine the fear and the terror that that has created in our city when you have cars driving around, people jumping out of those cars with guns and rifles and pulling people off the street,” she said.
ICE director Todd Lyons has defended his agents’ wearing of masks during raids citing safety concerns — primarily the uploading of names and photos online with death threats to agents and their families.
“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks,” Lyons said during a press conference in Boston earlier this month, “but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their families on the line because people don’t like their immigration enforcements.”
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As for how the agents dress, it’s a decision to wear street clothes so they don’t give away their presence before an arrest, John Fabbricatore, former director of ICE’s Denver field office, told the New York Times for a March story “As soon as people see ICE branding, they get in the way, they start protesting.”
ICE, Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations agents have all carried out raids in Southern California in recent weeks.
“When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs … criminal rings, murderers and rapists,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security. “Attacks and demonization of our brave law enforcement is contributing to our officers now facing a 500% increase in assaults.”
Richard Beam, an ICE spokesman, said that when he’s gone out with agents, they’ve verbally and visually identified themselves to prevent confusion.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell, speaking this week to the Board of Police Commissioners, acknowledged concerns among officers for “blue-on-blue actions,” between federal and local officers, as well as concerns from the general public regarding whether such plainclothes officers are actually federal agents — or possibly impostors.
“It’s unprecedented territory to be very honest,” the chief said. “There’s a lot of conversation around it. There are perceptions that people out there are not who they purport to be.”
McDonnell encouraged residents unsure if who they are dealing with are federal agents to call 911.
“Generally, (LAPD) officers will respond to a call like this and get a supervisor out there,” McDonnell said. “Their goal is to make sure the people in the agency are who they say they are. … If there is a complaint, it’s taken up with that agency.”
In the past, federal authorities at least sometimes notified local police when they were armed and on an active case in town.
“What we are seeing day in and day out, we have no knowledge of that,” said Mike Lyster, a spokesman for the city of Anaheim in Southern California. “We are not getting any notification of it, and we’re finding out like everyone else.
“We have not gotten a surveillance notice in the past few weeks that says another agency will be out there,” he said. “You don’t want two potential law enforcement agencies who may be armed to have any misunderstanding.”
In South Los Angeles last week, protesters surrounded a team of Los Angeles County deputies serving a search warrant in relation to a homicide under the belief they were ICE agents.
Luna, during an interview with ABC Los Angeles, acknowledged the fear and anxiety those in the communities the department serves are facing.
“We’re still doing our day jobs, which means we’re still doing search warrants and going after bad people who aren’t immigration-related at all,” Luna said. “We were serving a warrant for somebody involved in a murder and when we got out there, the anxiety that we see out there was immediately in the neighborhood.
“We’re trying to get ahead of this, trying to put out as much information as we can that we are still running normal operations,” added Luna, who encouraged the public to ask questions of the deputies to make sure they aren’t there for immigration-related reasons.
“There’s so much misinformation out there,” Luna said. “We don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”
Staff writer Ryan Carter contributed to this report.
