Earl Ofari Hutchinson
LAPD chief Jim McDonnell was emphatic at a news conference days before the January 30 nationwide anti ICE protests. He would not authorize any LAPD enforcement of the California 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 LAPD in direct conflict with another law enforcement agency, ICE.
McDonnell was not the only local law enforcement official that took that stance. In November 2025, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors passed an anti-masking ordinance. It also took effect in January 2026. It was little more than symbolism. L.A. County Sheriff officials instantly said that the department would not enforce the ordinance.
McDonnell’s and the sheriff’s refusal to enforce, the anti-mask rule drew loads of criticism. However, the brutal reality is that he couldn’t enforce the law even if he 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 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 GOP senators promptly took the cue In September 2025, 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 lone ranger mask up of ICE agents has been one of the single biggest public outrage about ICE agents. As of January 2026, nearly twenty 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 2025.
This has done nothing to stop the practice. The states that ban ICE agents masking 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 SCOTUS 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’s that ICE agents are under relentless physical assault. The figure tossed out is upwards of one thousand 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. This 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 SCOTUS, however, 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 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 The ICE Shooting Scorecard (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press PB) He hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show The Hutchinson Report Wednesdays 6 PM PST 9 PM EST at ktymgospel.net. and Facebook Livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/earl.o.hutchinson