Law enforcement officials across the country have raised alarms about a growing and dangerous confusion: residents are mistaking local police officers for federal immigration agents, creating safety hazards for officers trying to do their jobs and deepening public fear.
Internal emails and memos from police departments and city governments in seven states obtained through public records requests reveal the scope of the problem. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deployed masked agents in unmarked vehicles across American communities, local officers have found themselves caught in the crossfire of public suspicion and fear.
The confusion became particularly acute during ICE operations in Minneapolis in January, when city officials scrambled to clarify who their employees were. An internal email from the city operations officer instructed staff to "clearly identify yourself verbally and, when appropriate, with official city identification" and suggested describing uniforms or clothing in advance so residents would know what to expect.
The problem extended beyond police. Minneapolis fire inspectors reported a "substantial increase" in residents refusing to allow them entry to homes. The city's unarmed crisis response unit, which handles mental health calls, worried its vehicles resembled ICE vans. Animal control, firefighters, and other municipal workers all faced doors slammed shut.
"Community members felt very unsafe," said Jess Olstad, Minneapolis's media relations manager. City officials worked to create photos, social media posts, and talking points showing the public what city employees actually look like and what their vehicles display. The city eventually created special badges for its community safety workers.
Bellingham, Washington, near the Canadian border and a site of ICE crackdowns, faced the same issue. In February, a concerned resident emailed city officials noting the public could not distinguish local police from federal agents. The mayor forwarded the message to police, asking them to prioritize social media messaging to "ameliorate confusion about which agencies are responsible for immigration enforcement actions."
The consequences rippled through daily municipal operations. Police and other city departments spent significant time fielding 911 calls from residents unsure if they were witnessing ICE activity. Officers had to repeatedly explain who they were and what they did.
Law enforcement agencies also reported deeper concerns. An Idaho Criminal Intelligence Center memo titled "Local or federal? ICE or not? The potential dangers to all law enforcement" warned that community organizers had built apps and websites to track ICE agents. The memo claimed these tools had led to "doxxing, harassment, and, in some cases, attacks on local law enforcement personnel" when activists mistakenly identified conventional police work as immigration enforcement.
A Florida fusion center issued warnings about "officer safety concerns" in January, noting that social media users had "encouraged and shared guidance on violently targeting immigration enforcement personnel." The alert referenced a post featuring a photo of an officer, captioned as a wanted federal agent.
The coast guard issued a national alert to police about a community website soliciting reports of unmarked law enforcement activities, saying it could "compromise" ICE operations and pose a threat to operational security at the southern border.
Yet experts and civil rights advocates questioned whether these threats were grounded in documented incidents. Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, the transparency group that obtained the records, said the alerts revealed anxiety about "hypothetical" scenarios. He argued the real solution was not targeting anti-ICE activists, but stopping ICE's masked operations entirely.
Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a former intelligence counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged the confusion was real but blamed its source. "This confusion is heightened because federal agents are so openly and aggressively out in the streets in a constant way," he said.
The broader backdrop adds urgency to the issue. Families across the country have reported staying home out of fear of ICE encounters. Lawfully present immigrants have avoided sending children to school or going to grocery stores. As public distrust of police has grown following national protests, ICE operations have added another layer of anxiety to everyday interactions with anyone in uniform.
Irina Vaynerman, CEO of Groundwork Legal in Minnesota, emphasized that local officials should take steps to clearly distinguish their police from federal enforcement. "Local officials concerned about this should condemn these dangerous federal tactics, not recreate them locally in their own police forces," Reynolds added, calling for a full withdrawal of local support for immigration crackdowns.
Author James Rodriguez: "The real irony here is that police are upset about being mistaken for ICE, not about ICE's tactics themselves. If they want to rebuild trust and fix this mess, they need to stop collaborating with ICE altogether."
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