Some masked ICE agents are now wearing body-worn cameras as they detain immigrants inside Manhattan’s 26 Federal Plaza.
Over the last week several federal agents have been spotted clipping cameras to their chests on the 12th and 14th floors of the city’s now infamous facility. This marks the first time the feds have donned video equipment in their some eight-month stranglehold of the courthouse.
This also comes after the fatal shooting of both Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis during Trump’s immigration crackdown on the city. In the aftermath of the killings that led to widespread protests across the country, security secretary Kristi Noem announced that agents would be equipped with body cameras in Minneapolis, with the devices likewise being deployed later across the country.
“ICE agents should conduct themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country as opposed to running around – masked thugs, in many instances unleashing brutality on law-abiding American citizens,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an ABC interview in early February.
amNewYork observed the agents with the new video equipment, and while some are wearing the tech, others are not. amNewYork quizzed one of the agents directly about why he was not wearing a body camera while his colleagues were.
“They have it because they had a problem before,” the unnamed agent said, referring to the fatal shootings in Minneapolis.
Benjamin Remy, Senior Coordinating Attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, said that while all the masked feds inside 26 Federal Plaza perform immigration crackdowns, not all are technically ICE agents, which is why he surmises the body cameras are not universal to every law enforcement officer.
“We always have quite a mixture of federal agents that are here in this building. So, we might have actual Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Officers, we might have CBP officers, we might have ATF, we might have IRS, we might have DSS, we might have FBI,” Remy said.
Remy has been attending the immigration hearings and offering legal aid to those who have found themselves in the clutches of ICE since May of 2025. Having witnessed some of the most violent demonstrations the court has had to offer, he told amNewYork that he believes body-cams are a vital step in the right direction.
“It’s certainly a step towards accountability, but I think it’s rather glaring that even though there’s these body cameras, agents are still not identifying themselves — they’re still masked. Even if an agent is wearing a body camera, oftentimes they’re still not even indicating what agency that they’re working with, right? So, even if we know that there’s some amount of federal agents that are wearing body cams, if we’re not even able to know the agency, being able to FOIA or getting access to any of that body cam footage could be really, really complex and very difficult,” Remy said.
Legal expats like Remy are concerned that the body-cam will only be used for DHS’ internal usage. Much like the body-cam, masked agents have also been known to take photos of journalists. In recent weeks, one masked agent was caught photographing an amNewYork photographer. It is not clear where those are sent or what they are used for.
