The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which has played a central role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, has turned down a government report that called for its agents to wear body cameras that switch on automatically. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan body that supplies research to Congress, published the report on Wednesday.
The watchdog recommended updating ICE’s guidelines on camera use. It said automatic activation could help in unplanned incidents that are unrelated to sensitive operations and lead to force being used by or against staff.
Watchdog recommends automatic activation, but ICE declines
The report argued that additional controls are needed to make sure ICE personnel record footage in line with policy, given how important body-worn cameras are to law enforcement. It added that automatic activation would ease the difficulty agents face when they try to switch on their cameras by hand during enforcement operations.
ICE has rejected that recommendation. Under the proposal, a camera could be triggered when an agent draws a gun or turns on a vehicle’s siren. The agency cited privacy concerns in its response.
The Trump administration is under public pressure to make its immigration raids more transparent. Agents from ICE and from other bodies, including Customs and Border Protection, have faced accusations of excessive force and violations of civil liberties.
Shootings and disputed accounts from immigration operations
In January, two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot dead in separate incidents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during immigration operations. The New York Times estimated in July that immigration agents had opened fire on at least 25 people since the start of Trump’s second term. A CBS News review updated this week counts at least 30 shootings, with nine people killed and 13 wounded.
ICE has often said such incidents stem from aggression against its agents, and it has argued that officers fired to protect themselves from danger. In several cases, however, that explanation has been questioned. Critics argued that video footage from Good’s fatal shooting contradicted government statements that she had used her vehicle as a weapon against agents. According to observers, her car appeared to be turning away from the agents rather than towards them.
In another case, ICE agent Christian Castro was accused of making false statements about a shooting that injured Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man living in Minneapolis. Castro faces federal charges for allegedly lying that he had been attacked with a snow shovel and a broom before the shooting. Video footage contradicted his account, and he pleaded not guilty last month.
More recently, on October 8, immigration agents shot a man named Oscar Belgal in New York City while his five-year-old son was in the back seat of his car. ICE said Belgal appeared to be “going towards officers” when they opened fire. On Tuesday, a judge rejected the government’s effort to deport Belgal.
Department cites risks as training on cameras continues
Activists say better recording procedures for body camera footage could help clarify what happened in incidents like these. The Trump administration has largely refused to carry out reforms to ICE protocol. Earlier this year, Democrats in Congress delayed funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, arguing that significant changes were needed to reduce excessive force.
The department said on Wednesday that automatically recording cameras could lead to “the unauthorised recording of sensitive interactions with informants or victims”. It also said all ICE offices had received body cameras as of August 5. Training on their use is still ongoing and is set to be completed “soon”.
