Chicago (AP) – Many of the demonstrators who flooded the streets of Los Angeles to oppose the immigration of President Donald Trump wore masks or other facial cover and drew him off.
“Masks must not be worn in protests,” Trump posted on his social media platform and added that mask protesters should be arrested.
Demonstrators and their followers argue that Trump’s comments and repeated calls from the allies of the Republican President to ban masks in protests are an attempt to suppress the population of the population. They also notice a double standard in the game: in Los Angeles and elsewhere demonstrators were temporarily confronted by officers who had covered their faces. And some US immigration and customs authorities have worn masks while carrying out top-class raids in Los Angeles and other cities.
All of this raises the question: Can something that covers her mouth protect freedom of speech? Demonstrators say the answer is a emphatic yes. Several legal experts say it is only a matter of time before the problem returns to the courts.
“What do these people have to hide and why?”
Trump’s post, which demanded a ban on mask, came after poking from immigration triggered protests that contained some reports on vandalism and violence against the police.
“What do these people have to hide and why?” He asked on June 8th in social social.
The next day Trump raged against the anti-Ice protests and called for the arrest of people in facial masks.
It’s not a novel idea. Rights experts and supporters of First Amendment warn of an increasing number of laws that include masks against demonstrators and their effects on the right of people in protest and privacy in terms of surveillance of humans.
The legal question became even more complicated than democratic legislators introduced laws in California who aimed to prevent federal agents and local police officers from wearing facial masks. This came in the middle of those affected who tried to hide their identity and avoid the accountability obligation for potential misconduct.
“The recent federal transactions in California have created an environment of profound terror,” said Senator Scott Wiener in a press release.
The deputy secretary of the Ministry of Homeland Protection Tricia McLaughlin described the California law as “detention -worthy”.
“While ICE officers are attacked by rioters and stones and Molotov cocktails are thrown on them, a sanctuary politician tries to ban officers who wear masks to protect themselves from being administered by well -known and suspected terrorist sympathizers,” said McLaughlin in a statement.
Condition restrictions on mask formation
At least 18 states and Washington, DC, have laws that restrict masks and other facial coverage, said Elly Page, Senior Legal Adviser at the International Center for Non -Profit Law. Since October 2023, at least 16 draft laws have been introduced in eight states and the congress to limit masks for protests, the center said.
The laws are not just the remains of Coronavirus pandemic. Many date from the 1940s and 50s when many states adopted anti-mask laws in response to the KU Klux Klan, whose members hid their identity and terrorized the victims. In the midst of protests against the war in Gaza and Trump’s immigration policy, Page said that there were attempts to revive these rarely used laws to aim at demonstrators.
Page also did not like the laws that inconsistent and only fell on movements that the federal government does not like.
In May, the Republicans of the Senate of North Carolina passed a plan to abolish a law from pandemic, which enabled the wearing of masks in public for health reasons. The suburb of New York County in Nassau passed legislation in August to prohibit the wearing of masks in public.
The Attorney General of Ohio, Dave Yost, a Republican, sent a letter to the state’s public universities last month, in which protesters could be charged according to the state’s anti-mask law. Administrators of the University of North Carolina have warned the demonstrators that the wearing of masks violated the state’s anti-mask law, and during a protest student from Florida University were accused of wearing masks in public.
An unsolved question of the first change
People may want to protest their faces for various reasons, including the protection of their health, for religious reasons to avoid the retaliation of the government, prevent surveillance and doxing or to protect themselves from tear gas, said Tim Zick, legal professor at William and Mary Law School.
“Protecting the ability of the demonstrators to wear masks is part of the protection of our first amendment to protest peacefully,” said Zick.
Geoffrey Stone, a legal professor of the University of Chicago, said the legislators of the Federal Government and the Republican states claim that the laws should not restrict the speech, but “to restrict the illegal behavior that people would rather start if they can wear masks, and this would make it more difficult to carry out criminal prosecution.”
Conversely, he said, the advocates of First Amendment reject against these laws because they prevent people from protesting if they fear retaliation.
Stone said the problem was an “unresolved question of the initial adaptation”, which does not yet have to be treated by the US Supreme Court, but the Court “has made it clear that the right to anonymity is protected by the first change”. Few of these laws were challenged in court, said Stone. And decisions about the mask bans in the lower square are mixed, although several dishes have put down wider anti-mask laws to criminalize peaceful expression.
Aaron Terr, director of public interests at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the right to speak anonymously, “deep roots in the foundation of the nation, even if anonymous brochures that criticize British rule circulating in the colonies”.
Federal agents who wear masks
“The right to speak anonymously enables the Americans to express different or unpopular opinions without exposing themselves to the government’s retaliation or harassment,” said Terr.
First Amendment Advocacy groups and democratic legislators have referred to the masks as an attempt by ice agents to escape the accountability and intimidate immigrants. During a negotiation on June 12, Democrat Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Ice agents who wore masks during the raids criticized: “Do not wear masks. Identify who they are.”
Viral videos seemed to show the residents of Martha’s vineyard in Massachusetts with which federal agents were confronted, and asked them to identify and explain why they were wearing masks. The US representative Bill Keating, a Democrat who represents Cape Cod, sentenced “the decision to use non -marked vehicles and masks” in a letter to federal official “.
Meanwhile, Republican Federal Officials claimed that masks protect agents from doxing.
“I’m sorry when people are offended when they wear masks, but I will not let my officials and agents out and put their lives on the line and family because people don’t like what is the enforcement of immigration,” said the incumbent director of ICE, Todd Lyons.
