Opinion: ICE Agents Don’t Deserve Anonymity While Enforcing Authoritarian Cruelty

This week, federal immigration authorities turned their outrage not toward the growing death toll in their custody, or the families being torn apart by militarized raids—but toward a mobile app.

ICEBlock, a simple tool that allows users to share sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, has become the newest target of the Trump administration’s fury. CNN aired a short interview with the app’s developer, Joshua Aaron, and almost immediately, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons issued a statement blasting the network as “reckless and irresponsible,” accusing the segment of “painting a target” on agents’ backs.

But let’s be clear: ICE agents are not the victims here.

They are the enforcers of a cruel, racialized immigration regime that has only grown more extreme in Trump’s second term. Often masked, heavily armed, and unaccountable, ICE agents now operate more like a paramilitary force than a civil enforcement agency. They snatch people from courthouses, job sites, farms, and schools, frequently without identifying themselves and often without warrants. Under the current administration, these tactics have only grown more brazen—and more performative.

From choreographed raids with television personality Dr. Phil to “ICE Barbie” photo ops staged by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, mass deportation has been turned into political theater. It is meant to be seen. The administration wants the public to consume images of shackled migrants, viral videos of crying children, and triumphant social media posts of captured “illegals.” This cruelty is not a byproduct—it is the point.

What the administration does not want, however, is accountability. It wants secrecy for the enforcers and visibility for the spectacle.

The backlash to ICEBlock reveals this double standard in full. When the public shares sightings of federal agents—on public streets, engaging in public conduct—they’re accused of endangering national security. But when federal agents share footage of raids, immigrants in chains, and edited propaganda videos depicting alleged “attacks” on officers, that’s just “public information.”

This is a fundamental inversion of truth. Sharing ICE sightings is not violence. It is not vigilantism. It is protected speech. In fact, it is a necessary form of community defense.

ICEBlock is just the latest manifestation of a broader, decades-long effort by communities to protect themselves from unchecked law enforcement violence. It sits in the proud tradition of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement, when churches and community groups shielded refugees from Central America; of Copwatch groups formed in the 1990s to monitor police brutality; and of rapid-response immigration networks that have flourished since the first Trump term.

In response, the government has resorted to fearmongering and false claims. Todd Lyons cited a “500% increase in assaults” on ICE agents to justify the crackdown on ICEBlock. But there is no verified data supporting this number. And the agency’s definition of “assault” is so broad as to be meaningless. When New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was detained by masked agents for accompanying someone out of immigration court, ICE claimed he had “assaulted” federal officers. When Congresswoman LaMonica McIver attempted an oversight visit at a detention center, the Justice Department accused her of assault as well—despite clear video showing no such thing.

These false narratives serve a clear purpose: to cast ICE agents as victims, and anyone who questions them as dangerous threats. This is a timeworn authoritarian tactic. It echoes the long-standing “blue flu” mentality in American policing, where even mild calls for reform are met with mass walkouts and performative outrage. It’s the same playbook that saw NYPD officers turn their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 for merely acknowledging police brutality exists.

This culture of impunity is deeply entrenched. But it is especially dangerous when paired with anonymity and militarization.

ICE agents now operate in masks, without name tags or badge numbers, often refusing to identify themselves to the very people they detain—or to bystanders, attorneys, or even elected officials. The stated reason is “safety,” but the real motive is obvious: to avoid accountability. To hide from protesters, journalists, legal observers, and anyone else who might hold them responsible for the trauma they inflict.

The mask is not the core problem, but it is a symbol of something much larger: a system designed to operate in the shadows, without transparency, oversight, or consequence.

If ICE agents were carrying out the same violent policies in full daylight, with visible identities and legal oversight, their actions would be no less cruel. But the move toward anonymous uniformity, toward treating enforcers as interchangeable instruments of state power, enables an even more extreme dehumanization of the people they target.

And let us not forget who is actually in danger.

Since January 2025, at least 13 people have died in ICE custody. In the past decade, nearly 80,000 people have reportedly died attempting to cross the southern U.S. border. Meanwhile, Trump officials continue to frame their actions as “targeting dangerous criminal aliens,” despite the fact that over 65 percent of recent ICE arrests have been of people with no criminal record whatsoever.

These are not “public safety” operations. They are racialized mass removals.

Even ICE’s own footage undermines their narrative. In one widely circulated video from Santa Ana, California, agents tackled a man to the ground and repeatedly punched him in the head. DHS later claimed he had “assaulted” them with a weed whacker, but the video shows him retreating as masked agents douse him with pepper spray. The real message was clear: dissent will be crushed, and truth will be distorted.

This is why ICE doesn’t want to be seen. Because being seen means being judged. Being recognized means being held responsible. And when communities are able to respond in real time—to protest, to document, to intervene—that impunity is challenged.

There is nothing radical about opposing secretive, unaccountable state violence. There is nothing extreme about protecting vulnerable neighbors from arrest and exile. It is not a crime to inform people that armed agents are in their neighborhood. It is not terrorism to post a photo of a raid. It is basic civic resistance.

The true danger in American immigration policy lies not in information-sharing apps like ICEBlock, but in the regime that ICE is tasked with enforcing: a regime of mass deportation, racial profiling, family separation, detention, and death. A regime rooted not in public safety, but in white nationalism and political theater.

In that context, public oversight is not a luxury. It is a necessity. The public has every right to know when and where state violence is happening—and who is responsible for carrying it out.

ICE agents are not ghosts. They are not above scrutiny. And they are not the victims. If they are proud of the work they do, let them show their faces.

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