Alex Brandon/AP Photo
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers gather for a briefing before an enforcement operation, January 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Over the past few months, there have been chronic reports of individuals posing as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, in many cases using these guises to commit unlawful acts. Impersonation of law enforcement is not an uncommon occurrence in the United States, but the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies, and the particular ways in which ICE enjoys anonymity, have led to increased opportunities for such behavior, endangering and exploiting immigrants and their communities, regardless of their status.
It is indisputable that ICE agents regularly exhibit behavior that, if it were to be displayed by anyone else, would be considered criminal activity. The detention of individuals like Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student who was seized in broad daylight by masked ICE agents, fits the defining features of kidnapping but is not viewed this way when performed by federal immigration officials. A home security camera in Somerville, Massachusetts, captured the moment when Öztürk was accosted by ICE agents dressed in plain clothes and face masks, with the agent who first approaches her quickly grabbing her hands and later handcuffing them behind her back. She was ushered into an unmarked car and held in a federal facility for six weeks.
ICE agents regularly exhibit behavior that, if it were to be displayed by anyone else, would be considered criminal activity.
When they have bothered to explain these activities, ICE has said that anonymity is necessary for the protection of their agents. Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended his agents’ use of masks in a press conference on June 2, claiming that “People are out there, taking photos of the names [ICE agents], their faces, and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves. So, I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line and their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is.”
ICE’s view appears to be that they have a higher duty to carry out actions that protect the public from people who have committed or have the potential to commit crimes. But the strategies they employ to do so invite criminal behavior from others. Individuals are emboldened to commit crimes against those they believe are immigrants, capitalizing on the camouflage ICE agents employ and the fear of deportation in immigrant communities. ICE’s tactics make impersonation much easier in a chilling landscape where it has become difficult to distinguish who is an agent of the state and who is not.
THERE ARE MULTIPLE REASONS why people impersonate ICE, one of the biggest being the desire to try and get away with criminal acts. In January, a man in South Carolina was charged with impersonating an ICE officer and kidnapping, after detaining a group of Latino men in their car. One of the victims of this scam recorded Sean-Michael Johnson, the perpetrator, saying, “You got caught! Where you from, you from Mexico? You from Mexico? You’re going back!” During the incident, he took the driver’s keys and blocked the car with his van.
The incident sent shock waves through the Charleston immigrant community, sparking increased fear of immigration enforcement activity and safety concerns. Enrique Grace, CFO of the Charleston Hispanic Association (CHA), which supports the needs of the local Hispanic community, said that after the video was released, “everyone was now afraid to put their kids in school, or go shopping, or go play soccer on weekends. And that’s a hard place to live if you’re always afraid. All these ICE stories, it’s creating terrible, terrible fear in the community.”
Other cities have seen similar incidents. In February, three men attempted to enter a Temple University residence hall in North Philadelphia, claiming to be ICE. In April in Indiantown, Florida, another man was caught on video threatening to deport two Latino men; he was eventually arrested and charged with impersonating a federal law enforcement agent. On June 8, a Philadelphia man impersonating an ICE agent robbed a store and tied up a female employee, getting away with $1,000 in cash.
Impersonating a police officer to commit crimes became national news in the targeted attacks of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, state Sen. John Hoffman, and their respective spouses in their own homes. Hortman and her husband were killed in the attacks. After a massive two-day, statewide manhunt, suspect Vance Boelter was captured, arrested, and charged with first-degree murder. To gain access to the lawmakers’ homes, he drove what looked like a police vehicle, and wore a facsimile of a police uniform, a mask, and a tactical vest. According to acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, surveillance footage at the Hoffman residence captured Boelter shouting, “This is the police, open the door,” to get the Hoffmans to do so.
The same day as that attack, at a No Kings rally in West Chester, Pennsylvania, police were alerted to a man donning something that looked like a tactical vest, and placing a handgun in his waistband. He was later identified as Kevin Krebs, and a search revealed that he was carrying a handgun, knife, pepper spray, and ammunition. In an inspection of his vehicle, an AR-15-style rifle was found, and several explosive devices were discovered in his home. Krebs is now facing charges of multiple felonies.
Immigrant rights groups have been working to ensure that individuals know their rights if faced with potential ICE activity.
These horrifying stories of police impersonation cannot be separated from ICE impersonation scams. Both aim to capitalize on the opportunity to mimic law enforcement, and have apparently been used to target people on the left and individuals who appear to be immigrants. These groups are in particularly vulnerable societal positions at this moment in time, and impersonation scams only trigger increased hostility toward right-wing politics.
But ICE’s specific tactics do make scams like this easier to pull off. Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), ICE’s most public and controversial branch, routinely misleads people by dressing in plain clothes, pretending to be local police, or using other fake identities to successfully locate and arrest their targets. Miming as police is a common ruse, which creates more confusion and distrust in law enforcement among immigrant families. Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) recently introduced a bill that would prohibit immigration officers from wearing uniforms labeled “police,” to remedy this problem.
Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), a Texas-based nonprofit that provides legal and social services for immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking people, especially families and children, said this of masking protocols: “If you are incubating that culture of fear and incubating that culture of acquiescence to anyone who presents themselves as that authority figure without question, you are creating the space for nefarious actors to exploit, to their own motives, whatever those may be.”
Impersonating ICE can also be used to create unnecessary chaos, stemming from motivations rooted in right-wing ideology. At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, Jason Selvig of the political comedy duo The Good Liars conducted a chilling interview with an attendee wearing a dark blue jacket with “ICE Immigration” printed on the back and front, and a Make America Great Again hat on his head. The interviewee says that for “$29.99 on Amazon … if you want some entertainment wear this [the jacket] and go to a Home Depot in a sanctuary city like I live in right now, Washington, D.C., see all the illegals, not all of them, but you can maybe see a lot of them start to run away and you feel like a group fitness instructor, it’s really good.” When Selvig asks him if it’s funny, the man says that he thinks it’s “hilarious.”
In February, that very jacket became a best-seller on Amazon, and although it is no longer available, other websites are continuing to sell similar clothing. Buying law enforcement gear online is also a relatively simple process, with retailers not requiring identification from their customers. One can purchase a police vehicle on used-car websites, with other companies selling new cars online that can be customized with police graphics and sirens. A quick Google search of the desired item needed for law enforcement impersonation garners hundreds of results, allowing just about anyone to appear as an official actor of the government.
UNFORTUNATELY, THERE ISN’T MUCH HARD DATA on the prevalence of ICE impersonations, said Al-Juburi. “I think one of the hard issues here around collecting data … is the underreporting of interactions with law enforcement of our immigrant community. It’s kind of a catch-22 in that way.”
This is made more difficult by the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind a 2011 policy that limited ERO activity in certain locations such as hospitals, churches, and schools, which has expanded agents’ ability to detain individuals. “There is no longer hallowed ground, really,” Al-Juburi said. Factors such as this only increase immigrants’ apprehension when seeking out help from community organizations or others after experiencing a scam.
Despite this, there are plausible and realistic ways to protect oneself from ICE and police impersonation scams. Immigrant rights groups have been working to ensure that individuals know their rights if faced with potential ICE activity. One of the most fundamental things to remember is that to access an establishment, home, or even to approach someone on the street, ICE must produce a warrant signed by a judge. “They’re counting on you not to know any better.” Al-Juburi said. “They’re counting on fear for you to just let them in. Then you’ve waived your rights.”
Another key element is finding and feeling comfortable with speaking to a legal representative that you trust, says Al-Juburi: “There’s huge importance in having a legal representative, in being able to turn to them as your advocate, to be able to report these things to them, to be able to ensure that you have access to due process.” Al-Juburi also recognizes that this may be difficult because of the “breach of trust” that the immigrant community has faced at the hands of the U.S. government, such as the IRS turning tax information over to ICE.
Immigration justice organizations can also work to share information about impersonations, and determine what trends are possibly occurring in a given area. Doing so can collect more data and work to foster better understanding of these potential threats among all members of the public, regardless of legal status.
The biggest impediment to ICE impersonation would be forcing the agency to change its tactics that make impersonation so easy to accomplish, and holding it accountable for unlawful behavior. Doing so may decrease the opportunities ill-intentioned individuals have to act in ways that further exacerbate the feelings of mistrust and fear that many Americans are experiencing.
