Senator Slotkin wants immigrants to know they are being arrested by ICE agents, but she doesn’t want to stop ICE from terrorizing immigrants

Last week, Michigan Senator Slotkin, along with several Democratic Senators, introduced a bill that is called, the Visible Identification Standards for Immigration-Based Law Enforcement (VISIBLE) Act of 2025.

According to a statement released by Senator Slotkin, the VISIBLE Act would do the following:

• Requires immigration enforcement officers — including DHS personnel such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), federal agents detailed to immigration operations, and deputized state or local officers — to display clearly legible identification, including their agency name or initials and either their name or badge number, in a manner that remains visible and unobscured by tactical gear or clothing;
  
• Prohibits non-medical face coverings (such as masks or balaclavas) that obscure identity or facial visibility, with exceptions for environmental hazards or covert operations; and
  
• Requires DHS to establish disciplinary procedures for violations, report annually to Congress on compliance, and investigate complaints through its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. 

In the statement released by Slotkin, it provides some of the motivations for proposing such a bill, stating:

Clear, consistent, visible identification helps reduce miscommunication during enforcement encounters, strengthens officer credibility, and improves public cooperation, all of which are vital to mission success. The VISIBLE Act would place a critical check on the government’s power, ensuring basic transparency safeguards that protect public trust and legitimacy in immigration enforcement operations. 

I highlighted parts of the statement from Senator Slotkin, so as to make a point about the absurdity of the VISIBLE Act.

Calling what ICE does as enforcement encounters legitimizes that ICE is arresting and detaining immigrants, simply because they are undocumented. 

Slotkin also states that when ICE arrests or detains immigrants it strengthens officer credibility if they aren’t covering their faces, which means if immigrants can look into the eyes of the ICE agents that are arresting and detaining them, it strengthens the credibility of the ICE agents.

The Michigan Senator also thinks that ICE agents not covering up their face would improve public cooperation. This one is interesting, since it suggests that people will more like be willing to cooperate in the arrest and detainment of immigrants if ICE agents don’t have their faces covered.

The last part that is in bold merely restates what was previously said about public trust and legitimizing what ICE does to immigrants. 

I understand the intention behind the proposed legislation, with ICE agents not providing transparency or to limit the number of fake-ICE agents from taking immigrants. However, what I find most problematic and most distributing about the VISIBLE Act is that it is not calling for the actual abolishment of ICE. Do you think that immigrants will feel better or less terrorized if ICE agents are not covering their faces when they arrest them and take them to a detention facility? 

It is important that we stop supporting politicians who merely want to make mild reforms to institutions that are inherently oppressive. Requiring cops to wear body cameras has not reduced the number of times that cops abuse or kill people they are targeting. In fact, since body cameras have been introduced, the number of people killed by cops has increased, according to mappingpoliceviolence.org.

Everything about this proposed legislation is not only wrong, it would help to strength state carceral violence. What we need is to embrace a more abolitionist framework into our efforts to resist ICE. This is exactly what Detention Watch Network staffer and longtime activist Silky Shah writes about in her amazing book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition. 

Taking a more abolitionist approach to US immigration policy is also what Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE does. I encourage you to follow them on social media and get involved in their work.