Judge Rebukes Masked ICE Arrests as ‘Secret-Policing’ Regime (1)

A federal judge excoriated immigration agents for making arrests while wearing masks that conceal their identities in a scathing opinion that references a “regime of secret policing” and mask-wearing by Ku Klux Klan members.

Judge Joseph Goodwin of the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia found on Thursday that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violated an immigrant’s constitutional rights when they arrested him in masks and detained him without a bond hearing.

The agents’ presence—with masks, unmarked cars, and without badges—is “indistinguishable from lawbreakers,” and the arrest that followed is “the elimination of constitutional accountability itself,” Goodwin, a Clinton appointee who’s sat on the bench for over three decades, wrote in a 34-page decision.

The ruling is part of broader judicial backlash to the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics to carry out its arrest and deportation campaign. Democrats on Capitol Hill stalled funding for the Department of Homeland Security while they push for a ban on most agents wearing masks, among other demands.

“An anonymous government is no government at all. It cannot be held accountable. A masked agent freely uses force without justifying his actions, and the public cannot name him to challenge his conduct,” Goodwin wrote. “A regime of secret policing has no place in our society.”

The judge acknowledged that there are some situations where officers may hide their identities, such as in undercover operations. However, these circumstances bear “no resemblance to those recognized exceptions,” Goodwin wrote.

“No specific danger has been identified that required these agents to be masked for this arrest. This is a deliberate choice to conduct routine civil immigration enforcement through masked anonymous agents operating without warrants across the interior of the United States,” he said.

He also noted the use of masks by government officials “carries historical and semiotic weight,” such as in authoritarian regimes and Ku Klux Klan attacks.

Goodwin is the latest judge to express frustration with federal immigration agents’ tactics.

A federal judge in Minnesota, which saw a recent surge in immigration enforcement activity, held a government lawyer in civil contempt this week over his handling of another immigration detention challenge.

Last month, Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge of the Minnesota federal trial court, ordered the acting ICE director to appear personally to show why he shouldn’t be held in contempt for repeatedly defying court orders on the release of detained immigrants, though he later canceled the hearing when a detainee in question was released.

Judges have also criticized the administration’s newly adopted interpretation of federal detention statutes to argue that nearly all arrested immigrants must be detained. On Wednesday, a California federal judge vacated a decision by the immigration courts’ appellate board that formalized that statutory interpretation, after finding the government “far crossed the boundaries of constitutional conduct.”

Goodwin ordered the federal government in his Thursday decision to release Anderson Jesus Urquilla-Ramos, a 21-year-old from El Salvador who entered the US as a minor and has a valid work permit, following his habeas petition, according to the court’s decision. He was arrested in January by “a group of masked men” in an “unmarked black Ford Explorer without even a license plate,” according to the decision.

“Judge Goodwin’s decision reinforces that immigration enforcement must operate within constitutional limits,” Wilson Law Group attorney Shane Wilson, who represents Urquilla-Ramos, said in an email. “For many immigrants, including, political asylum seekers, tactics involving masked, anonymous officers resemble the kinds of government practices they fled before coming to the United States, underscoring why transparency and accountability are essential.”

ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is Urquilla-Ramos v. Trump, S.D. W.Va., No. 2:26-cv-00066, 2/19/26.