Democrats’ push to ban ICE agents’ masking shows whose side they’re really on

New York’s lefty lawmakers just blocked reviving the state’s ban on masking by protesters, and now two Manhattan Democrats, Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, have turned around to push a federal ban on masking by ICE agents, even when nabbing dangerous gangbangers.

Their “No Secret Police Act” would bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other Homeland Security officers from concealing their faces during civil immigration enforcement and require them to clearly display official ID and insignia.

California Democrats are proposing a similar state ban on any face masks for law enforcement officers; expect other progressive bastions to join in.

Hmm: Homeland Security recently reported that ICE enforcement officers are facing a 413% increase in assaults against them.

Plus, in the aftermath of the LA riots, “ICE officers’ family members have been doxed and targeted as well.”

Reprisals against family of law-enforcers are a classic tactic of the cartels and gangs such as Tren de Aragua and MS-13.

Meanwhile, progressives are dead-set against stopping their allies from masking.

Rioters and aggressive “protesters” have been routinely concealing their faces since at least the 2020 anti-policing demonstrations; it’s grown even more common among the “tentifada” set in demos since Oct. 7, 2023.

Anonymity not only makes it easier to get away with violent lawbreaking, it helps intimidate others and may encourage the masked to get out of control.

Hence repeated calls for the return of New York’s anti-masking law, which then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed to repeal in 2020, in the early days of the pandemic.

Gov. Kathy Hochul briefly sought just that this year, but progressives wouldn’t let her get more than a symbolic crackdown that generally protects masked demonstrators.

People engaged in principled, peaceful protest have no reason to hide their face.

And we even agree that masking by law enforcement should be strictly limited.

But it’s pretty strange to focus on outing the identities of officers trying to arrest illegal immigrants with ties to violent gangs even as your political compadres are protecting Antifa radicals and the new wave of antisemitic goons.