FBI urges ICE agents to identify themselves after string of impersonators commit crimes
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Ever since the Trump immigration raids began in Los Angeles in June, local leaders and community activists have criticized agents for sometimes making it difficult to identify them as federal law enforcement officials or refusing to identify themselves at all.Now, an unexpected new group has expressed its own concerns: the FBI.Citing a string of incidents in which masked criminals posing as immigration officers robbed and kidnapped victims, the FBI recently issued a memo suggesting agents clearly identify themselves while they’re in the field.The FBI explained its reasoning in a three-page document sent to police agencies across the country last month.In the memo, the FBI says that criminals impersonating law enforcement “damages trust” between them and the community and that law enforcement has an “opportunity” to better coordinate with their local, state and federal partners.It calls for informational campaigns to educate the public about impostors and for agents to show their identification when asked while out in the field.Undocumented immigrants and U.S.
citizens have been detained by masked people on city streets, in hospitals, courthouses, and outside schools and places of worship over the last several months.California has banned the use of masks among law enforcement agencies, but on Tuesday a cadre of masked agents gathered in an offsite Dodger Stadium parking lot while carrying out more raids.The FBI’s memo, obtained through a records request by the national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People, was prepared by the New York field office and first reported by Wired magazine.
It details several instances where people impersonated immigration agents.In Florida, a man pretending to be an ICE agent kidnapped a woman who was in the process of becoming a U.S.
citizen.The suspect approached the woman on April 21, claimed he was there to pick he...