... Under orders from Donald Trump’s White House, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is aiming to deport 1 million immigrants a year, and to make 3,000 arrests a day. Agents have detained farmhands and meat processors; garment and construction workers; graduate students; the mayor of Newark, New Jersey; and people who turn out to be completely innocent. But if immigration enforcement is more aggressive and visible than in the past, it is also more anonymous: ICE allows its agents to conduct operations in plain clothes and to cover their faces. Social media is flooded with images of masked men forcing people into unmarked cars.

This approach looks scary. It is scary. And it’s a grave mistake. In keeping with the values of the local police, the federal government should prohibit the wearing of masks by its officers and require them to properly identify themselves. These are the minimal requirements of policing a free state—regardless of how you feel about the administration’s stance on immigration. You can support ambitious deportation targets without sanctioning anonymous policing.

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The driving principle here is obvious: In a free society, people should know who is policing them. To codify this sentiment in the law, New York legislators have proposed a ban on mask wearing by ICE agents, and California legislators have put forward a bill that would ban federal, state, and local police from wearing masks when interacting with the public. (The California bill exempts members of SWAT teams conducting tactical operations if a mask could reduce exposure to heat, fire, chemicals, and contaminants.) The legislation addresses a crucial issue, but it exemplifies the overkill of our times: We shouldn’t need a law to ensure a basic feature of transparent policing. Federal agencies should adopt this policy as a matter of course.

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Hiding your face from the public as a federal agent undermines the legitimacy of our nation’s police, and can be mistaken for cowardice. Although the risks of showing your face as you police America’s streets are not negligible, they’re worth taking, because the consequences of concealment are more dire. ... Descending on a person in public, laying hands on them, and taking them to a distant prison is a naked expression of state power. For it to be tolerated in a democracy committed to an inalienable right to liberty, it must be just that: naked. It cannot be done by shadowy, masked agents.