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........

© The Intercept