House Dems conjure phantoms of past racism in jihad to unmask ICE

The fight over facemasks and federal immigration officers has Democrats reaching back into history to fear-monger about racism in the nation’s past.

With lawmakers unable to come to an agreement that will reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the battle rages on over whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents should be banned from wearing face coverings. And some members of the Democratic Party are invoking history to back their stance.

“Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) — and particularly those of a certain generation — say they have haunting memories from a pre-Civil Rights era when a man in a mask was someone to fear,” The Hill reported, noting that “the ban on masks has emerged as a key sticking point preventing a deal.”

Democrats shut down the entire Department of Homeland Security because they want to ban ICE from wearing masks.

ICE officers wear masks because they arrest and deport the worst of the worst, including violent gang members.

Not allowing ICE to wear masks would endanger agents…

— Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) March 30, 2026

“If you want ICE to take the masks off, the threat level has to decrease,” border czar Tom Homan recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Stop calling ICE ‘Nazis’ and ‘racists,’ stop saying they’re going to shoot people inside airports.”

“That’s going to drive the threat level down, and we can talk about masks,” he added.

But for Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), a longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), “It’s still a factor.”

“Because people — if you’re doing what is acceptable, you don’t mind people knowing that you’re doing it, even if you’re law enforcement. But if you’re doing something that is distasteful, then you’d prefer that people not know,” the 84-year-old told The Hill.

Davis, who grew up in rural Arkansas, invoked memories of masked people.

“And the only reason … you wouldn’t want to be identified, is that you are up to no good,” he said. “People were very conservative thinking, and naturally, if you didn’t want to be identified, they thought you were going to do something you didn’t want everybody to know about.”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), a former Black Caucus chairman, had similar thoughts.

“I grew up in a situation where I have seen masked people,” said the 81-year-old Democrat. “I grew up in the South. A white guy jumps out of the car with a mask on, I mean, my first reaction is self-defense.”

While Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) believes the nation’s history of masks is not the central point in ICE reforms and DHS funding debates, he contends “it’s something that’s in the back of your mind.”

“Whenever you are in this kind of situation, it recalls the memories of what masks meant in those days,” said the 77-year-old, a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“My family tried to make sure that I wasn’t haunted by something as a child that could not be explained. And so we would often talk about, ‘Who was that masked man?’ — because we would watch the Lone Ranger,” he continued. “It was a different kind of mask, and it was something that had a different connotation, so it kept me from thinking about the other masked men, who were out to hurt you.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), another Black Caucus member and a former state’s attorney, likened masked federal agents to the hooded Ku Klux Klan.

“The logic behind the masks for the Klan is the same as the logic behind the masks now, which is to hide an identity,” he said. “And if you’re on the good guys’ side, that’s not what you should be doing.”

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Frieda Powers

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.

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