Trump's Trials - How Trump admin immigration agents are disguising their vehicles

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Some federal immigration agents have been using masks to cover their faces when arresting migrants. But an NPR investigation found agents are also disguising their vehicles. NPR's Chiara Eisner reports.  Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. We're under invasion from within. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will. We all serve at the pleasure of the president. The golden age of America is upon us. We are in the golden age. Every episode of Trump's terms, we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the 47th president.

With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory. Today's story starts right after this. Keeping up with the news can feel like a 24-hour job. Luckily, it is our job. Every hour on the NPR News Now podcast, we take the latest, most important stories happening, and we package them into five-minute episodes, so you can easily squeeze them in between meetings and on your way to that thing.

Listen to the NPR News Now podcast. Now. I'm Stephen's Keep in Washington, D.C. In this country, federal immigration agents are using masks to cover their faces when arresting people. Agents are also masking their vehicles by operating cars without license plates or by switching plates. The evidence for this includes videos reviewed by NPR. NPR's Jimenez-Bistillo and Kiara Eisner investigated and here's Kiara. The founder of the Eyes Up application, an apt to shift.

videos of federal agents arresting migrants, has reviewed hundreds of videos over the past few months. He said he's noticed some patterns in the cars federal agents are driving when they detain people across the country. So we're not only seeing a wide range of vehicles, but we're seeing older vehicles and we're seeing disguise vehicles. During arrests, cars that the agents are using don't typically have the agency name on the side of the car. And they sometimes have no license plates on the back either. I would say roughly 5%. 5% to 10% of these videos

have vehicles with no plates. The founder of the application asked NPR not to use his name. He fares retribution for making a platform that tracks activity of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. But he's not the only one who has noticed this kind of disguise.

In a video that appears to be in Chicago, a car that appears to be used by a Border Patrol agent had a Mexican flag painted on the hood. That video was uploaded to social media. Activists in Los Angeles have also photographed federal agents leaving a staging area with different license plates on the cars than those cars had on previous days. A man who appeared to be a federal agent said something similar as happening in Illinois, too. In a video posted to social media in October, he told a bystander filming his car's plate that he

needn't bother because they, quote, change the plates out every day. ICE declined to confirm that the men who appeared in those photographs and videos were federal agents, and NPR didn't independently verify the video's authenticity. But the Illinois Secretary of State, Alexei Genulius, said swapping plates is not allowed. Flipping license plates or altering them in any way to avoid detection is strictly prohibited in Illinois. An ICE spokesperson, Mike Alvarez, said federal law enforcement, agency cars are exempt from displaying plates when that interferes with their duties. ICE's own guidelines indicate agents are required to submit paperwork when they want to drive vehicles

without plates. But NPR asked for that paperwork to see if employees have been filing those waivers, and ICE hasn't provided reporters with the records yet. Catherine Crump is a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, who focuses on cases at the intersection of technology and civil liberties. She says, said, concealing the identity of vehicles is risky for the public. You have to be able to identify officers so you can vindicate your constitutional rights when they're violated. And to the extent this is yet another step, ICE agents are taking to conceal their identities and avoid accountability. Police officers do go undercover sometimes.

Unmark cars are good for some things. That was Daniel Hodges, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., who was attacked on January 6th at the riot. on the U.S. Capitol. Since August, ICE has increased activity in D.C. and has arrested more than 900 migrants in the city. But Hodges says it's unclear what benefit unmarked cars have for immigration arrests. And masking vehicles could make it harder for police to do their jobs. I think that's causing a great deal of erosion of trust that we've worked to build up over the last few years. We've got to live with that destruction of trust after the feds go away. But the federal agents and their cars might not be.

going away anytime soon. ICE received $70 billion from Congress over the summer to expand its operations, including adding vehicles to its fleet and hiring thousands of new deportation officers. Kiara Eisner, NPR News. And before we wrap up, a thank you to our NPR Plus supporters who hear each show without sponsored messages and, of course, who help protect independent journalism. If you are not a supporter yet, you can visit plus.npr.org to find out how you can get a ton of podcast perks across dozens of NPR shows, like bonus episodes, exclusive merchandise, and more. Again, that's plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR.