Florida Lawmakers Move to Unmask Trump’s “Secret Police” (Exclusive)
VISIBLE Act of 2025 would force immigration officers to show their faces and credentials after a wave of impersonation crimes leaves immigrant communities terrified and distrustful.
FLORIDA – Trump’s legion of masked immigration enforcers has worked tirelessly to snatch families off of the streets in broad daylight with little-to-no identification, accountability, or respect for due process. The clandestine nature of the nation’s mass deportation machine hasn’t just stoked a vast, yet reasonable fear in immigrant communities; it’s also created fertile ground for additional violence directed towards an already vulnerable group.
Across the nation, reports of individuals impersonating immigration enforcement to harass, kidnap, and sexually assault everyday people have risen, bolstering fear in immigrant communities, and creating greater tensions between locals and authorities. The FBI has even asked law enforcement agencies nationwide to clearly identify themselves when asked by civilians according to internal messaging reported by WIRED, but reports remain to be seen if agencies will follow suit, fear lingering.
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Legislative Efforts
Last Thursday, state Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) and state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando) introduced the VISIBLE act. The bill would require all immigration enforcement in Florida to wear clearly visible insignia, as well as prohibiting the now-typical use of face masks to conceal officer identity and accountability.
“The reason I decided to file a bill was because I am a mom and I have daughters,” Nixon told Migrant Insider. “I started hearing about some of these women that were being kidnapped and raped because there were people posing as ICE officials, and I just don’t understand why they’re masked in the first place.”
The bill bears the same name as an unsuccessful effort by democratic U.S. senators to unmask immigration agents nationwide in July, also dubbed the VISIBLE act.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom passed a similar law in September called the No Secret Police Act, quickly prompting the Department of Homeland Security to announce over X its plans not to comply with the Californian law, despite the rules going into effect Jan. 1, 2026.
Migrant Insider asked Nixon the same question Californians eerily await an answer to: “what happens if ICE simply doesn’t comply with state law?”
“Then we need to sue the Federal Government. Period,” replied Nixon. “We can’t just allow federal officials to weaponize their offices to harm our communities.”
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The Road Ahead
Florida’s VISIBLE act faces a hostile republican supermajority in both chambers of the sunshine state’s legislature, providing significant barriers to the bill’s advancement through committee, nevertheless reaching the floor for a vote. Florida’s legislative session is set to begin Jan 13, 2026
In conversation with Migrant Insider Nixon said she’s yet to have any conversations with Florida house minority leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell, (D-Hillsborough) but anticipates she will support the bill if “folks care about women and children.”
Nixon also shared she anticipates the support of fellow Florida house progressive and state Rep. Dr. Anna V. Eskamani, (D-Orlando) but has heard little chatter about the bill outside her conversations with State Sen. Carlos Smith, who filed the senate version.
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Re: what happens if ICE simply doesn’t comply with state law?
Well you do what you always do to people who break the law: you arrest them, you take mug shots and finger prints and you leave them with an arrest record, and hopefully a conviction record. If we are lucky even jail time. I’m curious if once you take their prints you will find these thugs already have existing criminal records.
ICE Agents should be arrested after Trump leaves office. That’s it.