ICE Agents Continue to Pose as NYPD
 Over the last week, there has been an uptick in reports of ICE officers pretending to be NYPD on social media and in the news. Unfortunately, ICE has been purposefully misleading people with this tactic for years. A 2013 IDP FOIA revealed that ICE officers are trained to mislead individuals by using "ruses," effectively tricking community members into allowing ICE agents to enter homes or revealing information about the person they are looking for.
Last Friday, Mayor de Blasio sent a letter to ICE, demanding that their agents stop pretending to be NYPD. For years, IDP has been tracking ICE raids tactics and we have repeatedly raised concerns with city officials and the NYPD about ICE’s dangerous practice of claiming to be police. During a City Council Hearing around ICE policing and raids from February 2020, IDP testified on this very issue, asking the NYPD to both clarify their policy on ICE pretending to be NYPD and to speak out publicly against this tactic. To date, there has been no public statement or response from NYPD as to their position on ICE officers impersonating them.
In addition to tracking raids, IDP continues to share information on ICE tactics. To learn more, see our primer on ICE ruses and ICE ruse infographics in Spanish and English, as well as ICE ruse flyers, Ways ICE Pretends to be Police, available in English and Spanish.
You can also find examples of ICE ruses on our ICEwatch Raids Map by filtering by tactic. |
On Monday, October 19, 2020, from 5 pm to 7 pm EDT, IDP and Queens Neighborhoods United will be giving "NYC v. ICE," a virtual training for New Yorkers interested in organizing their communities against ICE raids and creating rapid response networks. In this training, we will share recent trends in ICE arrests in the New York area, what your rights are if you or a loved one has an encounter with ICE, and how to organize within your community to provide rapid response and document ICE actions.
