The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is forcefully defending his agents’ use of masks to conceal their identities, saying they fear being publicly exposed by anti-deportation activists. He also says his agents have been receiving death threats as a result of their roles in the president’s mass-deportation agenda. 

The acting director, Todd Lyons, traveled to Boston on Monday to hold a press conference about his agents’ arrest of nearly 1,500 migrants in Massachusetts during the month of May. Despite agency claims that the operation was meant to target “criminal alien offenders,” only about half of those arrested had outstanding criminal charges or convictions.

As he stepped away from the podium at the press conference Monday, Mr. Lyons suddenly turned around after a reporter asked him about agents covering their faces during the arrests. 

“I’m gonna answer the mask question,” Mr. Lyons said, returning to the microphone. 

“A lot of agencies were invited to come out two weeks ago in Los Angeles when we ran our operation where ICE officers were doxxed,” Mr. Lyons explained. “So let’s just say that again: people are out there taking photos of the names, their faces and posting them online with death threats to their families” and the agents themselves.

ICE agents have received criticism from pro-immigrant and civil liberties groups for their plainclothes attire and their use of masks to hide their faces. Two House Democrats — Congressman Don Beyer and Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman — have already introduced legislation to require that “all other Immigration officers, including those deputized … wear visible and distinct uniforms at all times of action.”

The most famous case out of Massachusetts involving such unidentified officers was that of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts University graduate student who was arrested by plainclothes agents in March while she was walking near campus. 

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, who represents the Tufts University area in the House, wrote in a letter to Mr. Lyons days later asking why some officers arrested Ms. Öztürk without uniforms, badges, or their faces showing. A judge later ruled that she had to be released by ICE on bail as detention proceedings continued. 

“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not gonna let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line — their family on the line — because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” Mr. Lyons stated at the Monday press conference. 

The acting director says the Secret Service has already arrested someone in California who they say doxxed ICE agents following a deportation operation at Los Angeles.

“They’re wearing those masks because we ran an operation with the Secret Service where we arrested someone that was going online, taking their photos, posting their families, their kids’ Instagram, their kids’ Facebooks, and targeting them,” Mr. Lyons said. 

Mr. Lyons said Monday that any concerns about masked agents are outweighed by his agency’s fear of doxxing or death threats from members of the public. 

“Let me ask: Is that the issue here? That we’re just upset about the masks, or is anyone upset with the fact that ICE officers’ families were labeled terrorists?” Mr. Lyons asked before walking away from the podium.