Hello, I'm Dana Taylor, and this is a special episode of USA Today's The Exert.

Law enforcement officers working in plain clothes or undercover is nothing new.

What is new is that some officers are now hiding their faces behind masks and refusing to show identification.

Following a surge in arrests by armed masked federal immigration agents and unmarked cars,

some California Democrats are backing a new bill in Congress

that would bar officials from covering their faces while conducting raids unless the masks were

required for their safety or their health. What's led to the rise of masked policing?

And is this what law enforcement should look like in a democracy? Here to dig into those questions and more is former FBI agent, Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Thanks for joining me, Mike.

Thanks for having me.

In a recent social media post on X, the Department of Homeland Security took issue with proposed legislation in California,

which would ban federal law enforcement from wearing masks.

DHS claims that ICE agents are facing assaults and doxing.

What are your thoughts on why some officers have made the decision to wear masks?

Has there been any official guidance that says officers should be masking?

I haven't seen official guidance going out, but I have seen DHS officials justifying the

agent's use of masks and basically giving a green light to that activity through their public

rhetoric. And what are your thoughts on why some officers have made that

decision for themselves? I think there are probably as many reasons as there are officers. I think one

of the issues is that they have detailed federal agents from other agencies to do this kind of

immigration work, and they're probably respected in their

communities and want to maintain their reputation in the work that they do. So I think there's

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