There is a (mostly) new trend in ICE raids, where ICE agents show up masked, and refuse to identify themselves, either to the public or local police. There is also a new trend of people impersonating ICE agents, because they find it gives them license to harass members of the public, abduct and sexually assault them, or even spring them from jail. When purported ICE agents show up and refuse to identify, like they did in Chelsea, MA on May 11, 2025, it causes fear among the public and confusion among police officers. Is the person in front of them an ICE agent or not? Does the officer even have the power to try to find out?
To address this problem, Digital Fourth has developed “ICE Agent Identification Ordinance” text for Massachusetts cities (this example is tailored for Cambridge), and is working with City Councilmembers in Cambridge, Boston and Amherst (so far) to get such ordinances passed.
Technical note: The key trouble folks have had in figuring out what to do with unidentified people purporting to be ICE agents, is that federal law doesn’t in fact require federal law enforcement or immigration officers to identify themselves (though DHS regulations do). Local laws don’t supersede federal law, so a local ordinance can’t require actual ICE agents to identify themselves. But, we realized, local laws can require local police to ask, not require, purported ICE agents to identify themselves to local police. Then, if the purported ICE agent refuses to do so, local laws can also require local police to treat the purported ICE agent as they would an ordinary member of the public. If the purported ICE agent does identify themselves successfully, however, local police don’t have the power to “forcibly impede or oppose” them in their conduct of a raid.
Digital Fourth was instrumental in passing surveillance technology oversight ordinances and facial recognition bans in Cambridge, Somerville and Boston in 2017-22. This draft language has been through attorney review. To request text adapted to your Massachusetts city, click here.
UPDATE: C. Scott Ananian in the Town of Brookline has alerted us to the excellent By-Law he helped Brookline pass on the issue of ICE raids in December 2024. Town officials may wish to use this, as an example of language that has already passed Town processes.