ICE Bans Hoodies and Jeans for Deportation Officers After Two Killings and a Botched Airport Arrest

A nationwide guidance memo signed by Acting ICE Director David Venturella, provided to The Intercept by a DHS whistleblower and confirmed by multiple ICE officers, sets new appearance standards for Enforcement and Removal Operations field work. It states that officers “shall wear readily identifiable ICE attire, including a ballistic vest during high-visibility operations,” specifies khaki or coyote-brown tactical pants with an ICE, dark blue or black polo, and bars “jeans, sweatshirts, hoodies, non-collared shirts, or apparel displaying graphics or screen prints” during field operations. It also requires that the ICE badge remain visible at the time of arrest during low-visibility operations. Two ICE officials attributed the change to the July shootings in Texas and Maine and to a July 13 attempt at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas in which two officers in hooded sweatshirts abandoned an arrest as bystanders recorded them.

Identifiability has been a recurring point of contention in the deportation campaign, with state attorneys general and members of Congress pressing ICE to require visible insignia. The memo addresses that through internal conduct rules rather than regulation, and officers quoted in the report suggested it may presage a shift away from ICE’s long-standing plainclothes posture.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment. DHS attributed the aborted Las Vegas arrest to “anti-ICE agitators” surrounding officers. The memo is internal and has not been published by the agency.