Despite their proclivity for wearing masks, the Department of Homeland Security denies that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents refuse to identify themselves in the field. “I’ve been on a number of these operations,” Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said last month. “They are wearing vests that say ICE or ERO, which is the enforcement arm of ICE or Homeland Security Investigations. They clearly verbally identify themselves.”

But video from a confrontation in a New York state town that was reviewed by The Intercept contradicts her claims.

In the footage, Juan Fonseca Tapia, the co-founder and organizer of the Connecticut-based immigrant advocacy group Greater Danbury Unites for Immigrants, questions a man dressed as a construction worker.

“What agency are you with?” asks Fonseca Tapia, filming through his car window.

“I’m not going to tell you,” responds the man, who is wearing a high-visibility construction vest, an orange helmet, and glasses, with a camouflage mask covering most of his face. “It’s none of your business.”

The construction worker getup was actually a disguise: ICE confirmed to The Intercept that the man in the hard hat is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. “ICE New York City officers were conducting surveillance in Brewster, New York, August 2, when anti-ICE agitators followed them and attempted to disrupt their operation,” an ICE spokesperson told The Intercept by email.

In the video — which was posted last weekend on social media by Greater Danbury Area Unites for Immigrants — the ICE agent said only that he is a member of “federal law enforcement.” Neither “ICE” nor “ERO” is visible on his vest in the footage. 

That puts the lie to McLaughlin’s claims that ICE agents identify themselves.

Fonseca Tapia told The Intercept that he spotted a second man who was similarly disguised as a construction worker.

“I find it outrageous. It’s indefensible. This is where we are crossing a dangerous line on immigration enforcement into these paramilitary type tactics with a secret police force,” said New York state Sen. Patricia Fahy who last month introduced the Mandating End of Lawless Tactics, or MELT, Act, which would ban the use of face coverings and plainclothes by ICE and other federal enforcement agents during civilian immigration actions conducted in New York. “The first three words of the provision that we’re adding into law are ‘Masks and disguises prohibited,’ period. And this video is Exhibit A. This is exactly what we are alarmed about.”

On Tuesday, at a National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston, Fahy joined colleagues from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in condemning the use of “paramilitary-type secret police” tactics by ICE agents. “We started to reach out to all the states that have legislation concerning masked ICE agents and said, ‘Let’s do this jointly. Let’s collectively bring attention to this,’” Fahy told The Intercept. “We had a couple of dozen lawmakers all standing up to say ‘This is not who we are’ and calling out these authoritarian-type tactics.”

The interaction with the disguised construction worker began when Fonseca Tapia spotted a group of people he believed to be ICE agents in downtown Brewster. He began alerting day laborers who congregate in the area, while driving in his car. Soon, Fonseca Tapia said, realized that he was being followed in a vehicle by the man in the construction worker get-up. Eventually, he found himself surrounded by several vehicles with dark tinted windows. 

Fonseca Tapia said that the man in the construction worker disguise confronted him and repeatedly tried to persuade him to roll down his window or get out of the car. He said he feared that he might be “kidnapped” by ICE. 

After Fonseca Tapia stopped filming, he said that the masked agent issued a warning: “More of my guys are coming and we’re going to take care of you.”

To Fonseca Tapia, that sounded like an act of intimidation.

“It’s literally a threat,” said Fonseca Tapia. “You have three vehicles with very tinted windows, so it’s impossible to see inside. People are wearing masks and refuse to identify themselves, and one of them tells you he is going to call more of them to ‘take care of you’?” This is for sure an intimidation tactic to instill fear in people who are working to alert the community when there is an ICE presence.”

“It’s undermining all of law enforcement because they come across as impersonators.”

An ICE spokesperson cited “increased assaults toward ICE” as the reason that the ICE agent confronted individuals who followed and filmed them in Brewster. “The officer was concerned for the safety of himself and others,” the spokesperson wrote.

“I don’t know what the concern was — because he was following me,” said Fonseca Tapia. “If he thought I posed a threat, I don’t think he would put himself in danger by following me.”

Since Donald Trump’s return to office, masked ICE agents carrying out immigration raids have become increasingly common. Across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies working with ICE launch operations wearing disguises or plainclothes and sometimes arrive in unmarked vehicles and arrest people without warrants. Often ICE agents don masks, balaclavas, neck gaiters, or other facial coverings to conceal their identities. 

Lawmakers, veteran law enforcement officials, activists, and citizens have criticized the donning of masks by law enforcement as anti-American — for sowing confusion, chaos, and fear, while reducing accountability and undermining public trust.

“The failure of ICE officers and agents to promptly and clearly identify who they are and the authority under which they are acting has led witnesses of immigration enforcement operations to justifiably question the law enforcement status, authority, and constitutionality of ICE officers and agents and their operations,” wrote U.S. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a May letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; Tom Homan, the executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations; and top ICE officials. “We remain deeply concerned that ICE’s lack of transparency will lead the public to intercede in enforcement efforts, escalating an already tense interaction, and risking an entirely avoidable violent situation.”

“These are third-world tactics.”

Fahy emphasized that she had a family member who served in law enforcement and that she saw the use of masks and disguises as a threat to law and order. “It’s undermining all of law enforcement because they come across as impersonators. There’s no accountability and there’s no transparency, so it erodes public trust and undermines decades of work and millions of dollars spent,” she told The Intercept. “When they use disguises, these arrests — without presenting an arrest warrant, neither a judicial or even administrative warrant — come across as abductions or kidnapping. These are third-world tactics, and they should shock the collective conscience.”

MCALLEN, TX - JUNE 23: A Guatemalan father and his daughter arrives with dozens of other women, men and their children at a bus station following release from Customs and Border Protection on June 23, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. Once families and individuals are released and given a court hearing date they are brought to the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center to rest, clean up, enjoy a meal and to get guidance to their next destination. Before President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that halts the practice of separating families who are seeking asylum, over 2,300 immigrant children had been separated from their parents in the zero-tolerance policy for border crossers (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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The International Association of Chiefs of Police warns that “members of the general public may be intimidated or fearful of officers wearing a face covering, which may heighten their defensive reactions.” 

An ICE spokesperson said the agency has no policy on masks, aside from pandemic safety requirements. The Department of Homeland Security has endorsed the agents’ right to wear masks, citing attacks on agents or the doxing of law enforcement or their families. In an email, DHS specifically mentioned one Texas man’s threat to shoot ICE agents as a reason to allow masks, although it was unclear how a mask would protect an agent from a bullet. Nonetheless, DHS insisted that because of such fears, ICE would not discourage its agents from wearing masks during anti-immigrant raids.

For almost two months, DHS has failed to respond to The Intercept’s questions about escalating statistics quoted by government officials about supposed assaults of federal agents. In June, DHS told The Intercept that “ICE law enforcement and their families are being targeted and are facing an over 400% increase in assaults.” ICE now claims that figure has jumped to 830 percent.

ICE failed to answer The Intercept’s questions about the use of disguises by ICE agents and if the agent who failed to identify himself in Brewster had been reprimanded. “At no time did the officer attempt to make an arrest or detain anyone without being plainly marked as an ICE officer,” the spokesperson said.

The New York City Bar Association has noted that secret police tactics are a gateway to further lawlessness. “Allowing masked ICE agents to conduct detentions also makes it increasingly likely that third-party actors will impersonate federal agents and use their anonymity to subject vulnerable populations to harassment and violence under the apparent color of law,” the group said in a June statement.

Bad actors have, indeed, masqueraded as ICE agents from coast to coast this year. Various people have reportedly impersonated ICE agents to commit or attempt robbery in Pennsylvania, kidnapping in Florida and South Carolina, scams in California, sexual assault in North Carolina, rape in New York, as well as acts of impersonation, intimidation and other offenses in California, Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Washington state.

In Congress, Democrats have introduced several bills, including the No Secret Police Act, which would bar federal agents from concealing their faces with “home-made, non-tactical masks” and require law enforcement officers and DHS agents engaged in border security and civil immigration enforcement to clearly display identification and insignia when detaining or arresting people.

“If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes — and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities.”

An ICE spokesperson claimed the persons filming the agent in Brewster presented “a safety concern for the officers, the community and even the agitators themselves” and that the “ICE officer contacted the local police.”

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The Village of Brewster Police Department, however, told The Intercept that it did not take part in any such interaction. The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office refused to entertain The Intercept’s questions. “We don’t have somebody that would handle even communicating that to the press if it was even for the press’s knowledge,” said a person who replied to a request for her name with “No, thank you,” before hanging up. A message left for the department’s civil affairs division was not returned.

Fonseca Tapia said that personnel from both the Brewster Police Department and the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office were called to the scene and spoke with him.

“This is a call to action for people to understand that this is wrong and this is not normal. Nobody is coming to save us. We are all we got,” Fonseca Tapia told The Intercept. “Now is the time for action. People need to get involved because today it’s immigrants’ rights, but who knows what group it’s going to be tomorrow?”