By Nick Turse

   “I’ve been on a number of these operations,” Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said last month. “They are wearing vests that say ICE or ERO, which is the enforcement arm of ICE or Homeland Security Investigations. They clearly verbally identify themselves.”

   But video from a confrontation in a New York state town that was reviewed by The Intercept contradicts her claims. In the footage, Juan Fonseca Tapia, the co-founder and organizer of the Connecticut-based immigrant advocacy group Greater Danbury Unites for Immigrants, questions a man dressed as a construction worker.

   “What agency are you with?” asks Fonseca Tapia, filming through his car window. “I’m not going to tell you,” responds the man, who is wearing a high-visibility construction vest, an orange helmet, and glasses, with a camouflage mask covering most of his face. “It’s none of your business.”

   The construction worker getup was actually a disguise: ICE confirmed to The Intercept that the man in the hard hat is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. “ICE New York City officers were conducting surveillance in Brewster, New York, August 2, when anti-ICE agitators followed them and attempted to disrupt their operation,” an ICE spokesperson told The Intercept by email.

   In the video -which was posted last weekend on social media by Greater Danbury Area Unites for Immigrants- the ICE agent said only that he is a member of “federal law enforcement.” Neither “ICE” nor “ERO” is visible on his vest in the footage.

   That puts the lie to McLaughlin’s claims that ICE agents identify themselves. Fonseca Tapia told The Intercept that he spotted a second man who was similarly disguised as a construction worker.

   “I find it outrageous. It’s indefensible. This is where we are crossing a dangerous line on immigration enforcement into these paramilitary type tactics with a secret police force,” said New York state Sen. Patricia Fahy who last month introduced the Mandating End of Lawless Tactics, or MELT, Act, which would ban the use of face coverings and plainclothes by ICE and other federal enforcement agents during civilian immigration actions conducted in New York. “The first three words of the provision that we’re adding into law are ‘Masks and disguises prohibited,’ period. And this video is Exhibit A. This is exactly what we are alarmed about.”

   On Tuesday, at a National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston, Fahy joined colleagues from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in condemning the use of “paramilitary-type secret police” tactics by ICE agents. “We started to reach out to all the states that have legislation concerning masked ICE agents and said, ‘Let’s do this jointly. Let’s collectively bring attention to this,’” Fahy told The Intercept. “We had a couple of dozen lawmakers all standing up to say ‘This is not who we are’ and calling out these authoritarian-type tactics.”

   An ICE spokesperson cited “increased assaults toward ICE” as the reason that the ICE agent confronted individuals who followed and filmed them in Brewster. “The officer was concerned for the safety of himself and others,” the spokesperson wrote.

   Since Donald Trump’s return to office, masked ICE agents carrying out immigration raids have become increasingly common. Across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies working with ICE launch operations wearing disguises or plainclothes and sometimes arrive in unmarked vehicles and arrest people without warrants. Often ICE agents don masks, balaclavas, neck gaiters, or other facial coverings to conceal their identities.