Let’s say you are walking in your neighborhood and you see a group of people carrying guns, wearing masks and tactical vests that say “Police” – the kind you can buy on Amazon. They pull a woman into an unmarked vehicle and drive away. Do you know how to tell if what you just witnessed was an ICE arrest, or if it was a kidnapping?
The short answer: No, you don’t. Because there’s not really a way to know, at least not in the moment.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, doesn’t show warrants to the public (as stated on ice.gov’s Frequently Asked Questions page). Unlike local law enforcement, they don’t have a blotter they release publically. A spokesperson out of Denver’s ICE office told the Bulletin that “without a name, [date of birth] and/or alien registration number we cannot provide any details on an alien arrest.”
“For operational security and for the safety of our law enforcement personnel, ICE does not confirm, deny, or otherwise discuss ongoing or future operations. The agency publicly announces operational results when appropriate,” the spokesperson said.
Ice.gov’s FAQ page doesn’t mention if ICE does or does not have to wear a badge, but numerous reports from across the country indicate that frequently badges are not visible. ICE officers do not have a standardized uniform and are often in plainclothes, and may be masked – the agency says this is for officer safety and to prevent doxxing. Body cameras are not standard across the board for ICE officers.
In light of this, I asked the Colorado Springs Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, “How should bystanders react if they see people being pulled into unmarked vehicles by masked persons that may or may not be ICE?”
CSPD responded, “Any citizen witnessing a potential abduction, disturbance, suspicious circumstance, or other concerning activity is encouraged to contact CSPD as soon as it is safe to do so. The department will respond and conduct an investigation as necessary.”
No Safe Haven.| Courtesy: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Common
“CSPD maintains open communication with our federal law enforcement partners. We encourage any federal agency conducting operations in Colorado Springs to notify the department, so that we can make our personnel aware of any potential activity,” CSPD told the Bulletin.
CSPD also said, “If necessary, CSPD has ongoing working relationships with multiple federal partners who can aid in any investigation any determination of whether the report is related to immigration enforcement activities.”
The concern that people might impersonate ICE officers to conduct a kidnapping – or other criminal activity, for that matter – is not hypothetical. Multiple national outlets, including a July report by PBS, noted the rise in arrests of alleged ICE impersonators committing crimes since the immigration crackdown began under the Trump administration earlier this year. The PBS report said alleged crimes committed by ICE impersonators included sexual assault, theft, and kidnapping.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to the Bulletin’s emailed questions about ICE; CSPD responded within hours.
The Bulletin was able to obtain information for our Aug. 28 story “ICE breaks car window with child inside to catch ‘dangerous Guatemalan’” because a bystander filmed the incident and posted it to social media, and we saw it and followed up. But typically, we have no way to know what ICE did in our area on a given day.
Obviously, this is not an ideal way to cover an extremely powerful national agency conducting law enforcement on our streets. But this is the reality we are dealing with. We have reached out to local agencies serving immigrant populations as we seek to bring the actions of ICE to light, and will continue to seek information through all available avenues.
Those who carry weapons with the power of the state behind them serve a vital role in our peace and protection. But they must not operate in a black box. History has shown us too many times how poorly that goes. We will shine a light on ICE in all the ways we can.
