The Hudson County Board of Commissioners have officially joined calls to ban law enforcement from wearing masks, voting for a resolution last week that supports a state bill that would do just that.

By Dan Israel/Hudson County View

The commissioners unanimously approved (9-0) a resolution supporting New Jersey Senate Bill S-3112, where one of the sponsors is state Senator Raj Mukherji (D-32), at their February 12th meeting. Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2) walked on the resolution.

This was the same meeting where they established the Immigrant Community Safety Committee, their second ICE task force formed last week, as HCV first reported.

“I think there might be a misconception, because we are late in the game as a lot of the advocates are saying, that maybe we don’t care. But that’s far from the truth,” Commissioner Fanny Cedeno (D-7) told HCV.

“Everybody that sits on the board, our attorneys, we all care and we are all very worried about what’s going on. I think that, yes, it might have taken us a little bit long to get to the table, but we’re here now. And I think what’s important is what we’re going to do moving forward. And that’s what we’re going to work on.”

The move comes in the wake of recent federal immigration enforcement operations across the country featuring masked agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) indiscriminately detaining people.

The bill would prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing any masks or disguise while interacting with the public in the performance of the officer’s official duties.

There is a similar bill in the New York legislature, which a similar effort in California was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), but a federal judge blocked it since local police were excluded.

“Masks make it difficult to hold federal agents accountable for misconduct, abuses of power, or excessive force,”  the resolution claims.

“In addition, the presence of armed, unidentified individuals in unmarked vehicles are creating a climate of fear and terror among immigrants and the community at large alike.”

According to the resolution, agents who operate anonymously can violate people’s constitutional rights by: engaging in racial profiling, stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting people without warrants, ignoring identifying documents proving citizenship or legal residency, refusing to show badges or identify themselves, retaliating against protestors, conducting unlawful searches, smashing car windows without justification and forcibly dragging people from vehicles.

This legislation would prohibit officers at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels from concealing their faces during official public interactions.

The resolution describes such interactions as an attempt to “enhance law enforcement accountability and public trust, and ensure transparency by requiring visible identification, reducing confusion, and protecting both officers and the public.”

The bill doesn’t apply to law enforcement officers engaged in undercover assignment; wearing a shield that does no conceal the officer’s face to protect the officer from harm; wearing a medical grade mask or N95 respirator to prevent disease if the officer has a statement from a licensed physician; or wearing a mask for protection against exposure to smoke during a State of Emergency.

Violations would be considered disorderly persons offenses, with fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 and or up to six months of jail time.

In an interview after the meeting, Board Chair Anthony Romano (D-5) said that the commissioners were just getting started in terms of coming up with meaningful, legal ways to deal with ICE in their neighborhoods.

He underscored the cooperation between the commissioners and the county executive on things like the two recently-established advisory committees or banning ICE and CBP from county property.

“It’s an ongoing process. It’s an ongoing process of finding out a balance, a compromise, what’s legal. It’s important to run everything through our law department. We can’t enforce things that are not enforceable,” he explained.

Romano also said that the Board is concerned for the community’s safety, stressing that county leadership is working together to make sure everything regarding ICE is done in a “proper, logical, and methodical way, so that it works.”