Officers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be equipped with much-delayed body cameras by the end of next month, it was reported on Friday. But experts have questioned the transparency of a policy that allows the ICE director to restrict the public release of footage unless “it is in the best interests of the agency”.
All they’ve done is state plainly what has always been every law enforcement agency’s unofficial policy regarding body-cam footage and made it official. ICE is what the police want to be but can’t be seen openly as, a fascist paramilitary occupying force. The only reason police keep up the appearance of transparency and accountability is because mass movements and the threat of them has forced them to. ICE is as yet unburdened by that baggage, though they got a taste of it after the surge in Minneapolis and they briefly had to pretend to change by firing Kristi Noem.