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rumeysa ozturk
Rights Group Condemns 'Terror' and 'Lawlessness' Spread by Trump's Masked Thugs
“Allowing masked, unidentified agents to roam communities and apprehend people without identifying themselves erodes trusts in the rule of law and creates a dangerous vacuum where abuses can flourish."
Dec 18, 2025
As masked government agents—an oft-employed terror tool of authoritarian regimes—run roughshod amid the Trump administration's mass deportation effort, a leading human rights group on Thursday called on Congress to investigate abuses perpetrated by federal officers against immigrants and US citizens alike.
Federal immigration enforcement agents "now commonly operate masked and without visible identification, compounding the abusive and unaccountable nature of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. "The indefinite and widespread nature of these practices is fundamentally inconsistent with the United States’ obligations to ensure that law enforcement abuses are investigated and met with accountability."
HRW continued:
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, his administration has carried out an abusive campaign of immigration raids and arrests, primarily of people of color, across the country. Many of the raids target places where Latino people work, shop, eat, and live. The agents have seized people in courthouses and at regularly scheduled appointments with immigration officials, as well as in places of worship, schools, and other sensitive locations. Many raids have been marked by the sudden and unprovoked use of force without any justification, creating a climate of fear in many immigrant communities.
Drawing upon interviews with 18 people who were arrested or witnessed arrests by unidentified federal agents, HRW highlighted the "terror" and helplessness felt by victims of such "lawlessness."
“It was a horrible feeling,” said Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University who was illegally snatched off a Massachusetts street in March and whisked off to an US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lockup in Louisiana after she published an opinion piece in a student newspaper advocating divestment from apartheid Israel as it waged a genocidal war on Gaza. With Öztürk having committed no crime, a federal judge ordered her release 45 days later.
“I didn’t think that they were the police because I had never seen police approach and take someone away like this," Öztürk said of her arrest—which bystanders likened to a kidnapping. "I thought they were people who were doxing me, and I was genuinely very afraid for my safety... As a woman who’s traveled and lived alone in various countries for my studies, I’ve never experienced intense fear for my safety—until that moment.”
Operatives with ICE—part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—and other agencies have violently attacked not only unauthorized immigrants but also members of their communities including US citizens, activists, journalists, and others. The agents are often wearing masks but not badges or other identifiers, making it very difficult to hold abusers accountable.
While ICE tries to justify its widespread practice of masking agents “to prevent doxing,” HRW stressed that "this kind of generalized, blanket justification for concealing officers’ identity is not compatible with US human rights obligations, except when necessary and proportionate to address particular safety concerns."
"Anonymity also weakens deterrence, fosters conditions for impunity, and chills the exercise of rights," the group added.
It also sows terror, as Republican-appointed US District Judge William Young noted in a ruling earlier this year: "ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor—and honor still matters."
HRW also noted that "in recent months, media outlets have reported on people posing as federal agents kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and extorting victims, exploiting fears of immigration enforcement."
“Allowing masked, unidentified agents to roam communities and apprehend people without identifying themselves erodes trusts in the rule of law and creates a dangerous vacuum where abuses can flourish, exacerbating the unnecessary violence and brutality of the arrests,” HRW associate crisis and conflict director Belkis Wille said in a statement Thursday.
HRW called on Congress to "investigate the brutality of the ongoing immigration enforcement activities, including the specific impacts of unidentifiable agents carrying out stops and arrests on impeding investigations and accountability efforts."
In addition to efforts by state legislatures to unmask federal agents, congressional Democrats have demanded ICE and other officers identify themselves, and have introduced legislation—the No Secret Police Act and No Masks for ICE Act in the House and VISIBLE Act in the Senate—that would compel them to do so.
“If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous,” No Secret Police Act lead co-sponsor Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) said at the time of the bill's introduction in June. “DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes—and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities.”
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Reagan-Appointed Judge Rips Into Trump Admin for Illegally Targeting Pro-Palestine Student Protesters
Politico's senior law reporter called it "the most scathing legal rebuke of the Trump era."
Sep 30, 2025
A federal judge issued an emphatic ruling Tuesday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it targeted pro-Palestinian student activists for deportation, describing it as part of an effort to "strike fear" into protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.
In the 161-page ruling, US District Judge William Young, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, concluded that the Trump administration undertook illegal efforts "unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech."
He also launched a broadside against the Trump administration's entire authoritarian ethos, describing President Donald Trump's "palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains."
Politico's senior law reporter Kyle Cheney described the ruling as "the most scathing legal rebuke of the Trump era." Young himself called it the most important he's ever issued in over 30 years on the bench.
The first page immediately captures this gravity, containing a scan of an anonymous postcard Young received in June as a prologue: "Trump has pardons and tanks... what do you have?" the sender asked.
Young included his response: "Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People ... have our magnificent Constitution. Here's how that works out in a specific case."
The case was launched following a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, which represent hundreds of college professors around the US who testified that they felt intimidated by what they described as "ideological deportations" by the Trump administration of students who expressed pro-Palestinian views.
Often without warning, the State Department revoked nearly 1,700 visas from lawful immigrants before targeting many of them for deportation under an executive order by Trump that allegedly responds to "antisemitism," but in practice extends far out to encompass any expressions of solidarity with Palestinians or criticisms of Israel.
During the trial, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acknowledged that it determined who to target using an anonymously operated pro-Israel "doxxing" website known as the Canary Mission, which publishes dossiers on college students around the country who express unfavorable views about Israel.
One of those students was Mahmoud Khalil, an activist at Columbia who held a green card, who was whisked away from his address in the middle of the night by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and sent to a detention facility for months. As Young acknowledged in his ruling, Troy Edgar, the deputy secretary of homeland security, stated plainly in an interview that the effort to deport Khalil was because of "basically pro-Palestinian activity." After a federal judge ordered Khalil's release, the Trump administration began efforts to deport him to Algeria or Syria.
ICE agents also snatched Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts, off the street in broad daylight after she co-wrote an op-ed calling for her university to divest from companies participating in Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. Although the administration acknowledged that Öztürk, who had a legal student visa, committed no crime, she remained in an ICE detention facility for more than six weeks before a judge ordered her release.
Young said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials, such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees ICE, "acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment-protected political speech."
He refuted the professors' contention that the administration had waged an "ideological deportation policy," which he said "could have raised a major outcry." Instead, Young said, their intentions were "more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated noncitizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome."
To strip visas "solely on the basis of political speech, and with the intent of chilling such speech," Young said, "is not only unconstitutional, but a thing virtually unknown to our constitutional tradition." The First Amendment of that Constitution, he added, "does not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens."
Young did not order any changes to Trump administration policy with his ruling, but only because Trump "poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech" as a whole, and further proceedings would be necessary in order to rein in those abuses more comprehensively.
He specifically identified the use of masks by ICE agents during arrests, which he described as "disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable."
"ICE goes masked for a single reason: to terrorize Americans into quiescence," Young said. "In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed, masked secret police."
The final 12 pages of the ruling, which American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick described as "truly remarkable," focus on "the nature of our president himself," who Young said "simply ignores" rulings he dislikes.
Young concluded that the courts, which he described as one of the few remaining bulwarks to Trump's excesses, needed to do more than issue nonbinding cease-and-desist orders, but instead issue permanent injunctions that can result in contempt charges if the administration refuses to stop illegal policies.
Trump, he said, is not "entirely lawless," but "has learned that—at least on the civil side of our courts—neither our Constitution nor our laws enforce themselves and he can do most anything until an aggrieved person or entity will stand up to him and say 'Nay.'"
Young also put the responsibility of resistance on the institutions that have capitulated to Trump's demands.
"Our bastions of independent, unbiased free speech–those entities we once thought unassailable—have proven all too often to have only Quaker guns," he warned. "Behold, President Trump’s successes in limiting free speech—law firms cower, institutional leaders in higher education meekly appease the president, media outlets from huge conglomerates to small niche magazines mind the bottom line rather than the ethics of journalism."
"I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected," he wrote in conclusion. "Is he correct?"
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'No Secret Police Act': Democratic Bill Would Ban Trump's Masked Federal Agents
"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
Jun 26, 2025
From the abductions of foreign students Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil to the violent accosting of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he was trying to shield an immigrant from arrest at a courthouse, the images have become familiar to many Americans: masked federal agents descending on communities across the U.S. and arresting citizens and immigrants alike.
Two Democratic lawmakers on Thursday demanded an end to the Trump administration's use of "secret police," introducing legislation that would require all law enforcement officers and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to clearly display identification and their official badges when detaining or arresting people.
"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.). "DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes—and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities."
Espaillat was joined by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in introducing the No Secret Police Act, which would also direct Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to conduct research and development to enhance the visibility of official insignia and identification.
"Across the country, plain-clothed federal agents in homemade face coverings are lying in wait outside immigration courts to snatch law-abiding, nonviolent immigrants going through our legal system the right way," said Goldman. "This isn't about protecting law enforcement, it's about terrorizing immigrant communities."
The legislation was introduced a day after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed during a Senate hearing that she hadn't been aware of federal agents' recent practice under the Trump administration of wearing masks while completing law enforcement work.
PETERS: How are you gonna ensure the safety of the public & officers if they continue to not follow required protocol to ID themselves as law enforcement?BONDI: That's the first that issue has come to me. You're saying officers when they cover their faces? I do know they are being doxxed.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, also said recently that the agency's officers "wear masks for personal protection and to prevent doxxing."
But as New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote Wednesday, "ICE has no right to anonymity."
"All people engaged in public service, from the president to an officer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are bound by the nature of a public office to act with some fidelity to the public interest," wrote Bouie. "At a minimum, they must be accountable to the people they serve, ready to accept responsibility when they abuse their power or violate the trust of the public."
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said that by granting ICE agents anonymity, the Trump administration has begun "a war on immigrant communities carried out in the shadows... an unconstitutional campaign of terror."
"Armed, unmarked federal agents are stalking immigrants outside courtrooms and targeting people who are following the rules and fighting for their lives. These tactics are ripped straight from an authoritarian playbook," said Awawdeh. "We will not be silenced nor intimidated by these actions. We are on the right side of the law and we will fight tooth and nail to end this assault on our people and our democracy. We call for the swift passage of the No Secret Police Act."
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