A Michigan Democratic effort would open up ICE agents to state prosecution if they conduct immigration enforcement operations while wearing masks that conceal their identity.
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The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, said Friday ICE’s masking-up “mirror the tactics of secret police in authoritarian regimes and strays from the norms that define legitimate local law enforcement.”
“It confuses and frightens communities,” she said. “Those who protect and serve our community should not do so behind a concealed identity.”
A banner on the dais from which Coffia announced the bill read, “Justice needs no masks.”
State Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, added his name as a co-sponsor and said in a statement when a person is unable to discern whether someone apprehending them is a government authority or not, it “shreds the rule of law.”
“That is why the Trump administration and the Republican Party are the most pro-crime administration and political party that we have ever seen,” Arbit said.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, who was one of several state prosecutors to demand Congress pass similar legislation at the federal level, also threw her support behind the bill.
“Imagine a set of circumstances where somebody might be a witness to a serious crime and that defendant has some friends go out and literally just mask up and go apprehend somebody at a courthouse,” Nessel told the Traverse City NBC affiliate.
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Nessel also lent her name to an amicus brief this month supporting a case brought against ICE over tactics used during its raids in Los Angeles.
“When masked, heavily armed federal agents operate with no identification, they threaten public safety and erode public trust,” Nessel said in the brief.
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