THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Federal agents won’t be unmasked here or anywhere else

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contributing Columnist
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell was emphatic at a news conference days before the Jan. 30 nationwide protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He would not authorize any enforcement of the state law that bans ICE agents from wearing masks.
McDonnell’s reason for non-compliance was simple. He contended it would pit one law enforcement agency, namely the Los Angeles Police Department in direct conflict with another agency, Immigration Customs Enforcement.
McDonnell was not the only local law enforcement official to take that stance.
In November, the county Board of Supervisors passed an anti-masking ordinance. It also took effect in January 2026. It was little more than symbolism. Los Angeles County Sheriff Department officials instantly said that the department would not enforce the ordinance.
The refusal of McDonnell and Sheriff Robert Luna to enforce the anti-mask rules drew loads of criticism. However, the brutal reality is that they couldn’t enforce the law if they wanted to. It had nothing to do with potential clashes between two law enforcement agencies. It had everything to do with federal law, power, supremacy and President Donald Trump.
An indignant Trump in a July 2025 Fox News interview made that clear. He called ICE agents “great patriots” and lambasted Democrats for allegedly putting “them in great danger, tremendous danger.”
A pack of Republican senators promptly took the cue. In September, they introduced the Senate bill, “Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act.” It would slap fines and imprisonment on anyone who publicly identified an ICE officer.
The masking up of ICE agents is the single biggest reason the public is so outraged about ICE agents. As of January, nearly 20 states banned ICE agents from wearing masks. California was among the first in the door on the anti-mask ban with its legislative ban in September.
It has done nothing to stop the practice. The states that ban ICE agents wearing masks are top-heavy Democratic states. The congressional lawmakers that introduced the anti-masking prohibitions are nearly all Democrats. No courts have upheld any of the bans.
The bans have gone nowhere for several reasons. One is the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. Though it has been called vague and subject to debate and interpretation, the actual wording as the Supreme Court made plain is “the states have no power” to “retard, impede, burden or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government. “
In other words, federal law always supersedes state law. The clause does one more thing that makes it virtually unassailable when it comes to federal law enforcement agents. It grants them near total immunity from any checks or restraints on what they can and can’t do when performing their enforcement duties.
Homeland Security, ICE and Trump have added a higher bar to unmasking ICE agents. It repeatedly cites the Homeland Security directive that claims that masks are vital to protect ICE agents from being identified and presumably targeted for attack. That fit ins with the dubious narrative that Trump, Homeland Security and ICE, never tire of harping on: that ICE agents are under relentless physical assault.
The figure tossed out is upwards of 1,000 alleged attacks since 2024. Homeland Security officials are purposely vague when challenged on just who has been attacked, where they have been attacked and what kind of attacks. The deliberate impression is that ICE agents continually face physical assaults which supposedly are life threatening.
Trump and Homeland Security are adamant. ICE agents will continue to wear masks. However, the dangling question that neither answer is why police and various other state and local law enforcement agencies, and other federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI have never worn masks in the performance of their law enforcement duties and before Trump that included ICE agents.
They also conduct raids, sweeps, serve warrants and engage in often hazardous day-to-day policing that also puts them potentially in harm’s way. What makes ICE agents any different that they require special protective safeguards that other law enforcement have never used or claimed they need to use?
The Supreme Court did seem to offer a small window to challenge ICE masking. It held that a federal law enforcement agent doesn’t get an automatic pass of immunity just because he or she is acting in the course of their employment. But just what and who determines what that employment entails and whether that employment is within the bounds of federal law is unclear. Trump, Homeland Security and ICE answer that all immigration enforcement is squarely within the bounds of federal law enforcement and its agents are immune from any restraints. The restraint in this case is the wearing of masks, hoods, caps and anything else they want to wear to shield their identity.
As long as that’s the case, ICE won’t be unmasked in L.A. or sadly anywhere else.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “The ICE Shooting Scorecard” (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press). He also hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show “The Hutchinson Report” Wednesday at 6 p.m. at ktymgospel.net and Facebook Livestreamed at facebook.com/earl.o.hutchinson.