Florida Bill Banning Masking Identity of Law Enforcement and Immigration Agents Fails

By Michelle DeMarco, Florida Trident

Legislation that would ban law enforcement and immigration officers from hiding their identities never had much of a chance in the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature.

Sponsored by Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando) and Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) the “Visible Act” would have prohibited any officer—local, state, or federal—performing immigration enforcement functions from wearing a mask or other face covering unless involved in “a covert, non-public operation, or to guard against hazardous environmental conditions.” Visible identification to include name tags or badge or identification number would also have been required.

The bills, both filed last year, have languished in committee since then, despite the outrage and wave of national protests that followed the shooting deaths of American citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis.

The killings underscored the critical need for the legislation, Smith said in an interview with the Florida Trident earlier this year. “ICE has been terrorizing our communities,” he said, with many immigrants swept up by masked agents and deposited at county jails or shipped off to Alligator Alcatraz, the controversial detention facility hastily constructed by the DeSantis administration in the middle of the Everglades.

“In the wake of the Minnesota shootings, it’s even more urgent we have transparency and accountability to keep our communities safe,” Smith said, adding that despite the Trump Administration’s insistence the immigration raids were solely apprehending the worst criminals, “they’re not. They’re targeting Latinos who have done nothing wrong. The idea that they’re apprehending violent criminals is a complete and total lie.”

The masking of ICE agents began last year, as officials claimed agents and other federal immigration agents were in danger from doxxing. Soon after, the FBI began issuing warnings about individuals impersonating masked agents to carry out crimes, with at least one incident reported in Florida.  Even Joe Rogan, an immensely popular and influential podcaster who endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency, appeared earlier this year to be turning against the immigration raids, likening them to Gestapo tactics.

“If you get arrested by a cop, you’re allowed to ask the cop, what is your name and badge number?,” he said. “If you get arrested by an ICE agent, you have no such right. They’re wearing a mask. They don’t have to tell you s—t. That’s a problem. That’s a problem on our city streets, right? Because you could also pretend to be an ICE agent.”

In Florida, law enforcement generally shuns the wearing of masks and officers are readily identifiable with name tags and badge numbers.  During the height of the Covid 19 pandemic, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods even banned his deputies from wearing face coverings while on duty.

But it is unclear whether Florida law enforcement agencies are permitted to wear masks while on immigration assignments. The Florida Highway Patrol, which has been the most active in immigration enforcement in the state, did not respond to questions posed by the Trident about uniform policies and face coverings. Neither did the Florida Gaming Control Commission, whose agents were spotted with full face coverings during an immigration raid last year reported by TCPalm.

Smith’s bill was partly modeled after legislation signed last September by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, dubbed the “No Secret Police Act,” which prohibits ICE from shielding their faces and concealing their identities. The law, which was scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, was challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice which claimed it violated the Supremacy Clause. A federal judge struck down the law last month, saying that it was discriminatory against federal agents because it did not apply to all law enforcement in California. Lawmakers are revising it to broaden its applicability and bring it into compliance.

But the Florida bill also draws from the past, and the state’s efforts more than half a century ago to address the fear and intimidation tactics of the Ku Klux Klan by banning the wearing of masks and hoods in public spaces.

Legislation prohibiting the coverings was filed in 1949, the same year in which the newly elected governor of Florida, Fuller Warren, was forced to defend his own past Klan involvement, and the Klan led a motorcade through the streets of Tallahassee.

“I never took part in any of the Klan’s brandings, beatings, whippings, torturing or lynchings,” Gov. Warren said in a March 1949 statement. “I never participated in the Klan’s cowardly attempts to terrify helpless people. I never helped the Klan to stir up hatred against defenseless groups of good American citizens.”

Noting his service in World War II, Warren described the Nazis as “first cousins to Klansmen” and professed his determination to safeguard the citizenry by preventing “this lawless mob” from growing strong again.

But legislation to outlaw the Klan’s hoods and masks was not successful until 1951, a year which would be dubbed “The Florida Terror” because of the sheer number of attempted and successful bombings following passage of the ban, and the Klan’s declaring war on “hate groups” including the NAACP, B’nai B’rith, and the Catholic Church.

While the law would later be partially struck down as too broad by the state Supreme Court and subsequently revised by the legislature in the early 1980s, key provisions of the statute raise questions about its applicability to law enforcement, in particular masked federal immigration agents. It is rarely if ever enforced.

For example, the statutes prohibit a person above 16 from wearing a mask or hood if the intent “by force or threat of force, to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person because of the person’s exercise of any right secured by federal, state, or local law or to intimidate such person…from exercising any right secured by federal, state, or local law.”

“Florida law is clear that wearing a mask while attempting to intimidate or deprive people of their rights” is illegal, said Alana Greer, a human rights attorney based in Miami. “No one is above the law, including ICE.”

The University of Wisconsin Law School, in a report updated in January, opined that Florida’s law could be used against federal officials in some ways, including the possibility of prosecution.

“If the law’s predicates are met (e.g., that the perpetrator acted ‘with the intent to intimidate, threaten, abuse, or harass’ or to violate someone’s civil rights), agents could have difficulty invoking the protections of either Supremacy Clause Immunity or Intergovernmental Immunity,” the report notes. “These laws may thus allow state officials to prosecute masked federal law enforcement in at least some circumstances without having to enact new legislation.”

But there’s a catch. A provision in the statute also “exempts people engaged in employment where a mask is worn for the purpose of ensuring the physical safety of the wearer…”

Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said applying the statute is complicated.

If law enforcement has “crossed over the line and become criminal,” then yes, the statute would apply, Jarvis said. But the ban was designed to stop criminals, he said. The revised law “has not been tested in court,” he noted, “and it is unclear whether the legislature did enough” to satisfy the concerns raised when it was first overturned.

“It’s so much simpler to do what California has done,” Jarvis said, by writing a law that says “the police cannot wear masks.” But tapping the existing prohibition would be bending it to fit a situation to which it should not apply. “I don’t see a Florida court saying this applies to cops. ICE doesn’t have any worries in Florida,” he said.

Without Republican support, the “Visible Act” was doomed from the outset. Despite some signs of concern by GOP colleagues over the immigration tactics both federally and at the state level under the DeSantis administration, the numbers for passage just weren’t there, Smith recognized.

“We’re in the super minority here,” Smith said. “We have to lead with our values.”

The 2026 legislative session is scheduled to end March 13.

Michelle DeMarco is an award-winning investigative reporter who returned to journalism after more than two decades in public service. Contact her at [email protected].