Mike Johnson Offers Bizarre Justification For ICE Masks. Backlash Follows.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faced criticism after he defended the wearing of masks by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during immigration raids.
Johnson was asked by Fox News to respond to concerns from Democrats who say ICE agents shouldn't conceal their identities while conducting arrests as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
'From the people who mandated mask-wearing for years in America, it's absurd,' Johnson fired back, referencing the face-covering measures that Democrats implemented during the coronavirus pandemic in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19.
'They need to back off of ICE and respect our agents and stop protesting against them,' he added, arguing that agents would be doxed if they were able to be identified.
MIKE JOHNSON: From the people who mandated mask wearing for years in America, it's absurd. They need to back off ICE and respect our agents.Q: So you're okay with these agents not identifying themselves when they're arresting migrants?JOHNSON: Why, so they can target them? So… pic.twitter.com/jJ5VjKa1bG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 6, 2025
Critics pointed out the irony of Johnson's acceptance of agents wearing masks, given his history of opposing mask mandates for medical reasons, and suggested he had conjured up an extreme example of false equivalence.
Agents should be able to be held accountable, they argued.
Using @MikeJohnson's logic, every police officer should be masked and unidentified when doing their job, for fear of being 'doxed.' https://t.co/0IMICl28gr
— sammi 🐈⬛ (@sammiesingstuff) June 7, 2025
The people wearing masks to protect themselves and others from COVID weren't arresting people or depriving them of certain rights. There's a level of accountability that comes with being a law officer. https://t.co/DhM38WDeaq
— Mike O'Rourke (@MikeORourkenews) June 6, 2025
Yet another example of how these evil individuals are gradually destroying our precious democracy. #MikeJohnsonhttps://t.co/L7BjNm6tY3
— Daniel Morcate (@dmorca) June 6, 2025
Johnson was also criticized over the weekend for dismissing concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's talk of active-duty Marines tackling protests against immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.
'I don't think that's heavy-handed,' Johnson said.
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Miami Herald
22 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Miami commissioners cautious with answers on whether they'll vote for ICE agreement
South Florida's largest city could deputize its police officers with immigration enforcement powers later this week, adding to a growing sense of uncertainty in the region as the Trump administration carries out its full-forced crackdown on immigration. On Thursday, the Miami City Commission is scheduled to vote to enter into what's known as a 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The city would join the 'task force' model, which allows police officers to conduct immigration enforcement functions during routine work and to question, arrest and detain people suspected of violating immigration law. However, despite the fact that the agreement is on Thursday's meeting agenda, two city commissioners told the Miami Herald that the item might be deferred for the second time. The commission previously deferred the item in April in order to postpone the vote until after the June 3 special election to replace the late Commissioner Manolo Reyes. Commissioner Joe Carollo declined to say whether he plans to vote in favor of the agreement but said he has been monitoring the protests against ICE in Los Angeles, where Trump deployed the National Guard. Asked where he stands on the 287(g) agreement, Carollo said he's 'certainly looking carefully' at Los Angeles, which he said has 'frankly been a factor in the way that I'm gonna be going at this.' Commissioner Damian Pardo said in a statement that 'as a life long advocate for a legal path for US citizenship and a supporter of TPS, I am not in favor of 287(g).' 'Regardless of how well this plan may be implemented by local enforcement agencies, and in addition to the human rights considerations, I am very concerned with the hostile climate these policies create for immigrants,' Pardo said. He added that the city's economy is boosted by the 'inflow of business from Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe.' 'Our city has benefited enormously from our attraction as a destination to the international community,' Pardo added. 'I would argue that attraction is the 'Magic' in the Magic city. Let's keep it that way.' Both Carollo and Pardo said the item would likely be deferred. READ MORE: What the end of CHNV parole program means for a half-million migrants, many in Florida The City Commission was scheduled to take its vote on June 12, which will be the first commission meeting for newly elected District 4 Commissioner Ralph Rosado. According to voting map data, over 90% of voting-age citizens in District 4 are Hispanic, meaning Rosado's district has the largest concentration of Hispanics in the city's five voting districts. Speaking at his election night watch party last week, the freshman commissioner said he hadn't decided yet how he will vote on the 287(g) agreement. 'I've been discussing it with a number of people,' Rosado said, adding that he has 'a series of legal questions' that he wants to ask the city attorney before making a decision. Commissioner Christine King, who is also the commission chairwoman, declined to comment on the ICE agreement. Reached Monday, Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela said he would get back to the Herald at a later time with a comment. Mayor Francis Suarez, who does not have a vote on the commission but who does have veto power, did not respond to a request asking whether he supports the city entering the 287(g) agreement. A city spokesperson said Monday that it is 'too premature' to say whether the item will be deferred. She did not directly respond to questions asking if a potential deferral was related to current events like the L.A. protests or the travel ban that went into effect Monday. Municipal and local police departments are not explicitly required to join 287(g) agreements, but Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier have argued that under the state's sanctuary law, they are mandated to do so. Uthmeier threatened to punish Fort Myers City Council members earlier this year when they declined to enroll in the program. Still, most Miami-Dade cities, including Miami Beach and Miami Gardens, have yet to join the program, according to ICE's database for participating agencies. Entering the 287(g) agreement could have a major impact in Miami, where about 58% of residents are foreign born and over 70% are Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. With just under a half-million people, Miami is the largest city in Miami-Dade County and the second largest in Florida. Miami would join a list of other Miami-Dade cities that have entered 287(g) agreements in recent months, including Hialeah, Sweetwater, Coral Gables, West Miami, Sunny Isles Beach and Miami Springs. If it happens this week, the City Commission vote would land at a time of increased uncertainty for non-citizens, with the Trump administration implementing a series of immigration policies in recent weeks that have targeted communities with large populations in South Florida. In addition to Monday's travel ban, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late last month in favor of a Trump administration plan that ended the humanitarian parole program known as CHNV, which allowed people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to legally enter the United States. The decision affects more than 500,000 migrants who were granted temporary legal status.
WIRED
22 minutes ago
- WIRED
The ‘Long-Term Danger' of Trump Sending Troops to the LA Protests
Jun 10, 2025 12:24 PM President Trump's deployment of more than 700 Marines to Los Angeles—following ICE raids and mass protests—has ignited a fierce national debate over state sovereignty and civil-military boundaries. LAPD officers and National Guard soldiers stand on patrol as demonstrators protest outside a jail in downtown Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids on June 8, 2025. Photograph:As hundreds of United States Marines deploy in Los Angeles under presidential orders to protect federal property amid growing protests over immigration enforcement, constitutional scholars and civil rights attorneys warn of long-term implications for American democracy and civil-military relations. President Donald Trump revealed Monday that he had ordered the deployment of more than 700 activity-duty Marines out of Camp Pendleton—an extraordinary use of military force in response to civil unrest. The move, widely condemned by his critics, follows Trump's federalization of the National Guard. Some 3,800 guardsmen have since been deployed in California against the objections of its government, spurring debate among legal observers over the limits of the president's power to send troops into American streets. Trump ordered the deployments in response to thousands of Angelenos who took to the streets on Friday in protests. LA residents responded after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carried out sweeping raids of local businesses, arresting, among others, dozens of day laborers who were vying for work outside a local Home Depot. Larger demonstrations soon formed and remained largely peaceful until residents were engaged by police with riot shields and crowd control weapons. Over the weekend, the clashes between police and protesters escalated across many neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Numerous buildings were vandalized with anti-ICE messages, and several Waymo autonomous vehicles were set ablaze. Videos captured by protest attendees show police firing upon demonstrators with rubber bullets and other crowd control agents, including waves of asphyxiating CS gas. Members of the press shared images online showing injuries they incurred from the police assault. In widely shared footage, a Los Angeles police officer appears to intentionally target an Australian reporter, Lauren Tomasi, shooting her from feet away with a rubber bullet as she delivers a monologue into a camera. On Monday, CNN correspondent Jason Carroll was arrested live on air. California governor Gavin Newsom condemned Trump's troop deployment in posts on social media, calling the president's actions an 'unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.' His attorney general, Rob Bonata, has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the order violated the state's sovereignty, infringing on Newsom's authority as the California National Guard's commander in chief. In response to a request for comment, the Department of Defense referred WIRED to a US Northern Command press release detailing the deployment of Marines and National Guardsmen. Federal troops in the United States are ordinarily barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities. This rule, known as 'posse comitatus,' may be suspended, however, by a sitting president in cases of civil unrest or outright rebellion. This exception—permitted under the Insurrection Act—allows the president to deploy troops when circumstances make it 'impracticable' for state authorities to enforce federal law by 'ordinary' means. While these powers are most often invoked at the request of a state government, the president may also invoke the act when a state chooses to ignore the constitutional rights of its inhabitants—as happened multiple times in the mid-20th century, when southern states refused to desegregate schools after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. President Trump, however, has so far not invoked the Insurrection Act, relying instead on a theory of 'inherent authority' advanced by the US Justice Department in 1971 during the height of the anti–Vietnam War protests. This interpretation of presidential power finds that troops may be deployed in an effort to 'protect federal property and functions.' Notably—unlike the Insurrection Act—this does not permit troops to engage in activities that are generally the purview of civilian law enforcement agencies. Trump also invoked statutory power granted to him by Congress under Title 10 of the US Code, which enabled him to federalize elements of California's National Guard. These activations typically occur when guardsmen are needed to support overseas military operations, as happened routinely this century during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Domestically, however, guardsmen are not usually federalized without the agreement of a state's governor—unless the Insurrection Act has been invoked. Legal experts interviewed by WIRED offered a range of opinions on the president's authority to deploy active-duty military troops or federalize the National Guard. While most believe it is likely within Trump's power to ignore Newsom's express objections, doing so without an invocation of the Insurrection Act, they say, is a decision fraught with legal complexities that carries serious implications, from altering—perhaps permanently—the fundamental relationship between Americans, states, and the federal government, to disturbing the delicate balance between civilian governance and military power. Liza Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, underscores the 'unprecedented' nature of Trump's approach. 'He's trying to basically exercise the powers of the Insurrection Act without invoking it,' she says. A key issue for Goitein is that the memorandum signed by Trump last week federalizing the National Guard makes no mention of Los Angeles or California. Rather, it states that the guardsmen are being mobilized to address protests that are both 'occurring' and 'likely to occur.' In essence, the memo 'authorizes the deployment of federal troops anywhere in the country,' Goitein says, 'including places where there are no protests yet. We're talking about preemptive deployment.' Goitein argues that the administration's justifications could undermine both judicial accountability and civil‑military boundaries. Under the Insurrection Act, federal troops can take on the responsibilities of local and state police. But without it, their authority should be quite limited. Neither the guardsmen nor the Marines, for instance, should engage with protesters acting peacefully, according to Goitein. 'He says they're there to protect federal property,' she says. 'But it looks a lot like quelling civil unrest.' Anthony Kuhn, a 28-year US Army veteran and managing partner at Tully Rinckey, believes, meanwhile, that there is really 'no question' that Trump would be justified in declaring a 'violent rebellion' underway in California, empowering him to ignore Newsom's objections. The images and video of protesters hurling rocks and other items at police and lighting cars on fire all serve as evidence toward that conclusion. 'I know people in California, the governor, the mayor, are trying to frame it as a protest. But at this point,' says Kuhn, 'it's a violent rebellion. You can draw your own conclusions from the pictures and videos floating around.' Kuhn argues that the intentions of the protesters, the politics fueling the demonstrations, don't matter. 'They're attacking federal facilities. They're destroying federal property. So in an attempt to restore the peace, the president has the authority under Title 10 to deploy troops. It's pretty straightforward.' In contrast, Rutgers University professor Bruce Afran says deploying military forces against Americans is 'completely unconstitutional' in the absence of a true state of domestic insurrection. 'There was an attack on ICE's offices, the doorways, there was some graffiti, there were images of protesters breaking into a guardhouse, which was empty,' he says. 'But even if it went to the point of setting a car on fire, that's not a domestic insurrection. That's a protest that is engaged in some illegality. And we have civil means to punish it without the armed forces.' Afran argues that meddling with the expectations of civilians, who naturally anticipate interacting with police but not armed soldiers, can fundamentally alter the relationship between citizens and their government, even blurring the line between democracy and authoritarianism. 'The long-term danger is that we come to accept the role of the army in regulating civilian protest instead of allowing local law enforcement to do the job,' he says. 'And once we accept that new paradigm—to use a kind of BS word—the relationship between the citizen and the government is altered forever.' 'Violent rioters in Los Angeles, enabled by Democrat governor Gavin Newsom, have attacked American law enforcement, set cars on fire, and fueled lawless chaos," Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, tells WIRED. "President Trump rightfully stepped in to protect federal law enforcement officers. When Democrat leaders refuse to protect American citizens, President Trump will always step in.' As the orders to mobilize federal troops have come down, some users on social media have urged service members to consider the orders unlawful and refuse to obey—a move that legal experts say would be very difficult to pull off. David Coombs, a lecturer in criminal procedure and military law at the University of Buffalo and a veteran of the US Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps, says it's hypothetically possible that troops could question whether Trump has the authority to mobilize state guardsmen over the objection of a state governor. 'I think ultimately the answer to that will be yes,' he says. 'But it is a gray area. When you look at the chain of command, it envisions the governor controlling all of these individuals.' Separately, says Coombs, when troops are ordered to mobilize, they could—again, hypothetically—refuse to engage in activities that are beyond the scope of the president's orders, such as carrying out immigration raids or making arrests. 'All they can do in this case, under Title 10 status, is protect the safety of federal personnel and property. If you go beyond that, then it violates the Posse Comitatus Act.' Federal troops, for instance, would need civilian police to step in. At the point, authorities want peaceful protesters to disperse. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that, in a letter on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested that military troops be directed to detain alleged 'lawbreakers' during protests 'or arrest them,' which legal experts almost universally agree would be illegal under ordinary circumstances. The letter was addressed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and accused the anti-ICE protesters of being 'violent, insurrectionist mobs' aiming to 'protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations.' Khun, who warns there's a big difference between philosophizing over what constitutes an unlawful order and disobeying commands, dismisses the idea that troops, in the heat of the moment, will have an option. 'It's not going to be litigated in the middle of an actual deployment,' he says. 'There's no immediate relief, no immediate way to prove that an order is unlawful.' Khun says that were he deployed into a similar situation, 'me and my junior soldiers would not respond to a nonviolent or peaceful protest.' Asked what protesters should expect, should they engage with federal troops trained for combat overseas, Kuhn says the Marines will hold their ground more firmly than police, who are often forced to retreat as mobs approach. In addition to being armed with the same crowd control weapons, Marines are extensively trained in close-quarters combat. 'I would expect a defensive response,' he says, 'but not lethal force.' Additional reporting by Alexa O'Brien.
The Hill
27 minutes ago
- The Hill
Speaker Johnson: Newsom ‘ought to be tarred and feathered'
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) should be 'tarred and feathered' for how he has responded to the violent protests in Los Angeles, while declining to say whether he agreed that the governor should face legal consequences. His comment came in response to a question at a press conference about President Trump endorsing the idea of his border czar Tom Homan coming to arrest Newsom. 'I'm not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested, but he ought to be tarred and feathered, I'll say that,' Johnson responded. He went on to criticize Newsom's objection to Trump deploying the National Guard to quell the anti-immigration enforcement protests. Newsom said he is suing the Trump administration, arguing he illegally federalized the National Guard to respond to the protesters. 'He's standing in the way of the administration and the carrying out of federal law. He is applauding the bad guys and standing in the way of the good guys,' Johnson said of Newsom. 'He's a participant, an accomplice, in our federal law enforcement agents being not just disrespected, but assaulted. This is a serious problem.' Johnson said of the lawsuit: 'What a joke. Do your job, man, that's what I tell Gavin Newsom. Do your job. Stop working on your rebranding, and be a governor.' Trump had endorsed the idea of Homan arresting the sitting governor on Monday. 'Gavin Newsom is daring Tom Homan to come and arrest him,' Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Trump. 'Should he do it?' Trump responded: 'I would do it if I were Tom.' Newsroom called the comment an 'unmistakable step toward authoritarianism' in response to Trump in a post on X. In Washington, though, Republicans are largely rallying around the administration's actions and confrontation with local Democratic leaders over protest response. Johnson played video of the violence and destruction in pockets of Los Angeles in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday morning, according to a source. White House Press Secretary Karolina Leavitt was a guest speaker at that morning meeting and also pushed the administration's posture on the protest response.
