(Bloomberg Standing)-In March, when federal immigration agents were masked, they were caught on the camera who grabbed the student of Tufts University from the sidewalk and forced it to an unmarked vehicle, it was shocking.
“Why are you hiding your faces?” Care can be heard.
It wasn’t long before such an aggressive tactics became the norm in many American cities. But perhaps it is not more obvious anywhere than in Los Angeles and the surrounding area, where President Donald Trump decided to concentrate his administration on undocumented immigrants and to treat the National Guard and Marines for the objections of California officials.
LA is full of agents, from border patrol and immigration to customs enforcement to internal security investigation, many of which are not easy to identify. In the resulting confusion, the police are wrong with these agents. The trust that is so critical for the local enforcement of law to convince people to report crimes, regardless of their immigration status, disrupts. And fear and paranoia are high that some of the masked people walking around with weapons and chasing people are not federal agents at all, but criminals pretend to be law enforcement. Indeed, he is afraid of the overall impact on public security.
California State Senator Sasha Rene Perez, who sponsor the bill to make federal agents identifying, told me that police chiefs recognize the “very dangerous” situation created by Trump’s administration. She says she introduced her account because she didn’t know what to say a folder after the masked agents caused panic in her district by pulling a high -performance rifle from the car trunk in a busy parking lot.
“They asked,” How will we be able to find out if anyone is actually an ice agent? “And” should I just get into a car with any masked person with a weapon who claims to be ice? ” ”
Many elected officials ask the same questions, as it is known that criminals are going to ice agents. Kathryn Barger of Los Angeles County believes that Staffer Latino Godson was approached by two impersonators in an unmarked car. They told him he had a “nice truck for someone with this surname” and tried to open the door.
It seems that a day will not take place lately without a new viral video showing armed men in skis or throat, climbing from unmarked vehicles with non -state boards. Sometimes they wear tactical vests that say “police”, but almost never with names tags or badge numbers. And when passers -by ask if they are federal agents for which the agency they work for and whether they have orders, men – and mostly men – usually refuse to answer.
There are many reasons why this tactic is problematic, including the basic insult to civil freedoms. After all, the Americans are used to seeing the faces of law enforcement and being able to require identification. This transparency goes a long way to create conditions for public security.
There is no confidence in the enforcement of law and communities that serve, but also a certain level of communication and coordination between government agencies. But a little of this happens, the California Democrats continue to say. Trump’s administration would probably blame the state law on the “shrine”. However, nothing prohibits announcements to cities or civil servants of upcoming operations.
However, in this vacuum of information, tension and confusion, it was allowed to build between public and federal immigration agents.
For example, in the suburban Pasadena, elected officials were left to guess about the identity of a person in a “police” vest that headed a weapon to a group of pedestrians. They assume he was a federal agent because he turned on the red and blue emergency lights of the car before leaving. However, the local police have not been told about any operations.
“One question is that it is an agent in criminal proceedings or someone pretends to be a lawful agent, and there is no good answer,” said Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo The Los Angeles Times.
Elsely, the protesters faced secret police detectives and thought they were federal agents. “It is not safe for our officers or for others involved in any active police operations, if distortion or misunderstanding leads to inappropriate involvement,” wrote Michael Dorsa, police chief of Fontana on Facebook.
The Sheriff Department in the San Bernardino district said his fleet of unmarked vehicles was also focused. “All white vehicles are not ice,” she said, then deleted on the X. And the mayor of Huntington the park went so far that he suggested to direct the city police to identify the federal agents before the raids called “state intimidation.”
The Californian State Senator Scott Wiener, who presented a bill forbidden to cover their faces to federal agents, calls the “flammable” situation. (If accepted, such an account, like Perez, would probably not be forced.)
Why a secret? Tom Homan, Trump’s border tsar, insists that this is not a “intimidation”. It’s “because thousands were doxxxized,” said The New York Times Podcast The Daily. “Their families were doxxed. Photographs of ice officers appeared on trees and telephone poles. The threats of death are high.”
This is probably true, and if so, it’s a problem. However, not to let the right to be in a masked secret, persecute people without having to provide orders or identification, is not a viable solution.
“Who are these people?” The mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass asked at a recent press conference. “And frankly, the vests that have, look as if they ordered them from Amazon. Are they reward hunters? Are they vigilant? If they are federal officials, why don’t they identify themselves?”
These are questions that deserve answers. The fact that Trump’s administration does not make any further evidence that despite what Trump says of adherence to “law and order”, the deportation of random dishwashers, daily workers and landscape painters have nothing to do with public security.
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This column reflects the author’s personal views and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Erika D. Smith is a journalist of politics and politics for Bloomberg’s opinion. She is a former journalist Los Angeles Times and a member of the editorial board Sacramento Bee.
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(Tagstotranslate) Immigration Agents (T) Undeined Immigers (T) Los Angeles (T) Federal Agents (T) Public Security
