Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Let’s just call the insistence on wearing of masks by the brutal and murderous thugs in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the misleadingly named Customs and ‘Border’ Patrol (CBP) the bullshit (BS) that it is.

This private army operating under the authority of Trump and his Constitution-savaging executive orders, with its gratuitous violence and willful blowing-off of hundreds of court orders issued by federal district and even appellate courts, has no valid or defensible justification for hiding its “agents’” identities by wearing masks, refusing to have attach numbers and name patches on their military-style uniforms. These federal goons are no different from municipal police or activated units of the US National Guard, who do not wear masks asnd are required to be identifiable (though some bad ones do try to hide names or badge numbers). Even soldiers in war are required to wear identifying numbers , names and “dog-tags.”

The right-wing argument made by Trump’s sycophants in Congress and the corrupt and Nazi-aping leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is that without masking and otherwise hiding their identities, the ICE and Border Control agents could be “doxed at their homes,” putting them at risk.

Yes! They should be at risk of being identified, not in order to “dox” them but to punish them for criminal actions like running over, beating, injuring and even murdering innocent activists exercising their First Amendment right to protest, to film agents’ illegal and........

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