{"id":5413,"date":"2025-07-17T23:46:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T06:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5413"},"modified":"2025-07-17T23:47:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T06:47:06","slug":"in-american-life-a-growing-and-forbidding-visual-rises-the-law-enforcement-officer-in-a-mask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5413","title":{"rendered":"In American life, a growing and forbidding visual rises: The law-enforcement officer in a mask"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a matter of months, it has become a regular sight around the country \u2014 immigration enforcement agents detaining people and taking them into custody, often as public anger and outcry unfold around them. But in the process, something has disappeared: the agents\u2019 faces, covered by caps, sunglasses, pulled-up neck gaiters or balaclavas, effectively rendering them unidentifiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the year only half over, the covered face \u2014 as deployed by law enforcement in a wave of immigration crackdowns directed by President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> White House \u2014 has become one of the most potent and contentious visuals of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increase in high-profile immigration enforcement was already contentious between those opposed to the actions of Trump\u2019s administration and those in support of them. The sight of masked agents carrying it out is creating a whole new level of conflict, in a way that has no real comparison in the U.S. history of policing.

Trump administration officials have consistently defended the practice, saying that immigration agents have faced strident and increasing harassment in public and online as they have gone about their enforcement in service of Trump\u2019s drive toward mass deportation, and hiding their identities is for their and their families\u2019 safety to avoid things like death threats and\u00a0doxing<\/a>, where someone\u2019s personal information is released without their permission on the internet.

\u201cI\u2019m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I\u2019m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don\u2019t like what immigration enforcement is,\u201d Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons said last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s pushback, as expected<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Democrats and others, including the several state attorneys general, have pushed back, saying the use of face masks generates public fear and should be halted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter to Lyons last week, a group of Democratic senators said the stepped-up immigration enforcement in workplaces, restaurants and other sites was already causing dismay and the increasingly common sight of masked agents \u201crepresents a clear attempt to compound that fear and chaos \u2013 and to avoid accountability for agents\u2019 actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In American culture, covering one\u2019s face has often gone hand in hand with assumptions of negative behavior. Think bandits donning bandanas in cowboy movies, or robbers putting on ski masks before pulling a heist on a bank. Even comic-book superheroes who cover their faces have been swept up in storylines in recent years that derisively refer to them as \u201cmasks\u201d and say their decision to hide their identities while enforcing justice is transgressive.

And the presence of masked police or paramilitary forces in other countries has been seen by Americans as antithetical to promised democracy and justice for all \u2014 and to the common-law principle of being able to face your accusers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mask-wearing overall in American life took another hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Trump supporters scoffed at notions that protective masks would insulate people from the deadly virus and scorned people who wore them. More recently, Trump has come out against masks, at least when they\u2019re being worn by protestors<\/a>. He posted on social media last month that demonstrators wearing masks should be arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given all that cultural context, it\u2019s even more problematic that those enforcing laws be the ones with their faces covered, said Tobias Winright, professor of moral theology at St. Patrick\u2019s Pontifical University in Maynooth, Ireland. He has worked in law enforcement in the U.S. and writes frequently about policing ethics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If \u201cwhat you\u2019re doing is above board and right,\u201d he said, \u201cthen why conceal your identity?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power gives different symbols different meanings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For those who question why it\u2019s different for law enforcement to wear masks if protestors and non-law enforcement personnel are doing it<\/a>, it\u2019s because symbols have different meanings based on the power and position of the people using them, said Alison Kinney, author of \u201cHood,\u201d a book about that clothing item and the various ways people have used it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cICE agents are agents of the state. and they\u2019re invested with not only power but also with protections in carrying out their job,\u201d she said. \u201cBut that job is also supposed to be public service. It\u2019s also supposed to be accountable and responsible to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd so they have a greater responsibility for transparency and accountability and making themselves known so that we can hold them accountable for the justice or injustice of their actions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerns over how law enforcement is held accountable to the public have come up before. Advocates pushed for officers to wear body cameras and demanded that police officers have visible names and badge numbers. But there hasn\u2019t previously been much discussion around police masking because there isn\u2019t a history of it being done in any kind of official widespread way in the United States, outside of SWAT- or undercover-type operations, Winright said.

The most high-profile example of mask-wearing in American history for the purpose of hiding identity is also its most negative one \u2014 racist attacks carried out by the members of the Ku Klux Klan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The masks served a purpose, of course, of keeping the wearers\u2019 identities secret, said Elaine Frantz, a history professor at Kent State University and author of \u201cKu-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction.\u201d But they also made it easier for those wearing them to commit violent acts against others, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne thing about a mask is it kind of works like being behind a riot shield,\u201d Frantz said. \u201cWhen you have more of separation from the person you\u2019re attacking, it\u2019s easier to dehumanize that person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winright said he hoped law enforcement mask-wearing wouldn\u2019t be normalized. There has been at least one expansion into local policing. In Nassau County, on Long Island just outside New York City, County Executive Bruce Blakeman last week signed an executive order allowing police officers to wear masks during certain types of work, including working with immigration agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winright is concerned, though, that the move could strain police-community relations even more, thus putting officers at even more risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWearing a mask seems to increase fear and decrease trust, and policing from federal to local in America needs trust and transparency and community relations that are positive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added: \u201cThe harms, the risks, are greater by wearing masks, not only to the individual officers, but to the profession itself, as well as to the United States society. It\u2019s just going to further exacerbate the us-versus-them polarization, the lack of trust, and that\u2019s the probably the last thing we need right now.\u201d

Reprinted from Associated Press
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