‘We need to unmask ICE’: Pima County moves to ban agents from wearing masks

The Pima County Board of Supervisors is exploring ways to ban federal immigration enforcement on county property and require transparency from agents who often cover their faces and refuse to answer questions when detaining people.

At its Tuesday meeting, the board directed staff to draft two ordinances — one that would protect county property from federal immigration enforcement and another that would ban law enforcement at all levels from wearing masks and would require them to wear visible identification. The board also passed a resolution opposing what could become an immigration detention center in Marana.

The move comes two weeks after Tucson City Council directed city staff to draft an ordinance that would not block U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from carrying out civil immigration enforcement on city property. 

California passed a bill last fall called the No Secret Police Act, banning federal and local law enforcement from wearing masks on the job with exceptions for health reasons. That law is currently on hold after President Donald Trump’s administration sued in November to block it. 

At its Tuesday meeting, the board of supervisors heard from more than a dozen Pima County residents who urged them to pass the three items on their agenda related to ICE activity. Only two people spoke out against the three items. 

Community members, the majority of which agreed on the importance of keeping law enforcement at all levels accountable, asked the board to also ensure the resolutions that would eventually be passed be enforceable.

Charles Russell, told the board he is a veteran who took an oath 25 years ago to defend the constitution. 

“When you adopt a resolution, or create a resolution, put some teeth to it, to hold these ICE people accountable for their actions,” Russell said. “Give our county sheriff and our local police departments and prosecutors the tools necessary to ensure that these ICE goons pay the price for breaking the law, for trampling the constitution, for murdering people on the street.”

Omar, who declined to use his last name, told CALÓ News it's important that local officials publicly oppose ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) activity. 

“What I have noticed is that in Minnesota, both the mayor and the governor are taking positions that are oppositional, and that's very powerful and also fuels the social movements there,” he said.

During public comment, Omar said ICE and CBP are the sources of “rampant lawlessness,” citing the CBP agents who fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minnesota as one of many examples.

“I fear that if this county does not stand up to this invading force of lawlessness it risks becoming complicit in unlawful conduct that harms the community,” Omar told the supervisors. “The dehumanizing language of calling immigrants illegals is a distraction from the real criminal behavior, that of mass deportation itself.”

Raine Ikagawa said she supported all three agenda items attempting to hold federal immigration agents accountable to their actions. 

“I believe that these are meaningful actions that we can take as a county to shrink ICE’s playground for kidnapping human beings off of our streets,” she said. “This is a baby step to hold law enforcement officials including ICE accountable for their actions.”

Ikagawa, a first-generation Japanese-American, said that 85 years ago, she could have been found at the Catalina Federal Honor Camp, now known as the Gordon Hirabayashi Campground, referencing the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. during World War II. 

“Are we really going to do this again?” Ikagawa asked, urging her representatives to do what they can to block the opening of a potential immigration detention center in Marana. “In 85 years I want to celebrate that we resisted. That we did not [open] this detention center – that we may as well call a concentration camp – and not leave it up for our children and our grandchildren to rebrand that place in a shameful way to make up for an atrocity that we committed.” 

Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen, District 3, who introduced all three items on the agenda, said she has had close family friends get detained in the last two months. One friend is sitting in a detention center in Florence, where he was denied medical attention for seven days and went that long without access to necessary heart medication. 

She said county-owned libraries, health clinics, conservation lands, parking garages and other open spaces should be safe spaces. 

“Places of the county should be places that are safe,” Allen said, referring to the first of the three items. “Safe for people to escape from, find some ounce of respite against the terror that we are seeing out on our streets and in streets across the country.”  

Supervisor Andres Cano, District 5, thanked the community members for sharing their thoughts and reminded them their voice matters. He said immigration agents have detained people outside of schools and hospitals, making everyone in the area, not just the person being detained, feel less safe. 

“We have the authority to protect access to services, to protect our county employees and the authority to keep public spaces calm,” Cano said. “Our buildings are not traps. Our parks are not ambush sites. Our health clinics are not places of fear. And our libraries are not places people should avoid. They are public spaces. They belong to the public and to everyone.” 

Regarding the item exploring banning law enforcement from wearing masks, Supervisor Matt Heinz from District 2, said five years ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, supervisors voted to require law enforcement to wear masks as a public health measure. Some in the audience laughed as Heinz pointed out the irony. 

Heinz said while he supports an ordinance requiring that law enforcement not wear masks and sees it as a public health and safety measure, the ordinance should include exceptions for health reasons. 

“I do believe that this represents a significant public health threat,” Heinz said. “And that we could possibly frame an ordinance in such a way relying on that public health authority to eliminate that public health threat by requiring full transparency and no masking of law enforcement agencies.” 

Supervisor Steve Christy, District 4, opposed every item and suggested replacement motions including one to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the federal government allowing them to use county land. None of Christy’s motions were seconded. 

Regarding a future ordinance to protect county property, Christy asked whether his fellow supervisors expected Tucson Police Department officers and Pima County Sheriff’s officers to “arm themselves up and go in and fight ICE with guns?” 

“Yes,” several people in the audience responded. 

“This is a highly volatile issue that is being perpetrated by this board without thinking it thoroughly through,” Christy said. “If there is any violence after this ordinance is passed, it’ll be on the hands of my colleagues to my left. And if you’re asking for some sort of a civil insurrection, a violent one, you’re treading on very dangerous territory and I think you know that.” 

All three items Allen proposed passed 4-1, with Christy the sole opposition every time. 

County administration is tasked with presenting a draft of the two ordinances to the board by their next meeting Feb. 17, and the board of supervisors is expected to vote on both ordinances at their March 3 meeting. 

Stephanie Casanova is an independent, bilingual journalist from Tucson, Arizona, covering community stories for over 10 years. She is passionate about narrative, in-depth storytelling that is inclusive and reflects the diversity of the communities she covers.