Without the mayor, the San José City Council unanimously voted on Tuesday to advance the process of adopting an ordinance prohibiting law enforcement officers and federal agents from wearing disguises on the job.
Proposed by District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, the policy requires all officers to wear visible identification and requires information sharing between the San José Police Department and the city manager’s office conducting immigration enforcement in San José, according to the meeting’s agenda.
This vote directs the city attorney’s office to return this policy within 60 days with a draft that prohibits all law enforcement officers from concealing their identity.
“We saw the consequences of not having regulations in place,” Ortiz said. “Exactly a week ago at ConXión – where ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents entered without clearly identifying themselves – community members, staff and even students were left shaken and fearful.”
ConXión to Community is a nonprofit in San José that provides social services such as educational and job readiness programs for youth and community members in Santa Clara County, according to its website.
ICE agents entered the organization’s building in plain clothes and detained a man last Tuesday, according to a Sept. 24 NBC Bay Area article.
This is on the heels of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent signing of District 11 Senator Scott Wiener’s “No Secret Police Act” into law on Sept. 20, according to a news release from the senator.
The law is set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026 and will ban federal and local law enforcement including ICE from wearing facial coverings such as ski masks while conducting operations in California.
Greg Woods, a justice studies senior lecturer at San José State, said the bill is critical of federal policy because of its use of language such as “secret police” and “raids.”
“Transparency plus accountability equals trust,” Woods said. “If we want to have trust and legitimacy within the institutions and the relationships between law enforcement and the community – particularly those marginalized communities – it’s essential that we have transparency and accountability.”
The Department of Homeland Security released a statement four days prior to Newsom’s signing of the bill and requested for the law to be vetoed. The agency wrote that forcing officers to show their faces made them vulnerable to being doxxed or targeted, according to the Sept. 16 news release.
Doxxing is publicly identifying private information about someone, especially as a form of punishment or revenge, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Misrayn Mendoza, organizing manager at Amigos de Guadalupe Center for Justice & Empowerment spoke during public comment.
While he talked he held a photograph of an ICE agent wearing a facial covering and wore a shirt with the words “NO ONE IS ILLEGAL ON STOLEN LAND” written on the back.
“Will you feel safe with people walking around like this?” Mendoza said. “When you ask them for the name, as a responder, I asked them for the name and they told me ‘Google it.’”
The center is a nonprofit in San José that provides housing and rental services as well as free classes aimed at teaching a path to citizenship and English as a second language for community members, according to its website.
The Spartan Daily reached out to the San José State University Police Department for comment on how it plans on enforcing the state legal guidelines on wearing facial coverings but did not receive a response in time for publication.
UPD will not comply with requests from federal immigration authorities to contact and detain individuals based solely on their immigration status and it will not enforce immigration laws or detain students or community members based on the same reason, according to an Associated Students letter written by the President of Associated Students’ Board of Directors Ariana Lacson.
SJSU Alumnus Lawrence Deng called on the council to pass the item during public comment.
“When ICE goes for one they go for all of us,” Deng said. “This is unacceptable, this needs to stop and we need to do everything we can to strengthen protections.”
