Masked, anonymous persons who have apprehended Latino residents from across Southern California bus stops, parks and shopping centers might include those impersonating immigration officers, according to state and local officials, who on Monday asked for new laws to increase transparency and weed out any vigilante activity.

Senate Bill 805, the “No Vigilantes Act” co-authored by State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, and Assemblymember Sade Elhawary, D-South Los Angeles, will require anyone conducting law enforcement activity in California to display their name or badge number.

Perez said the bill is in response to sweeping raids in Los Angeles and many suburbs resulting in hundreds of people being detained since Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement sweeps that began on June 6.

That enforcement has led to dozens of workers detained by ICE officers in a series of raids that include in LA’s fashion district and at Home Depot and other store parking lots in Southern California, including in the cities of Whittier, Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera, Irvine, Downey, Huntington Park and Pasadena, often done by men wearing masks, driving unmarked cars and refusing to identify themselves, even to local police departments.

Raids in Pasadena on Wednesday, resulting in the arrest of six individuals from a busy shopping center at Los Robles Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard, and a raid Saturday at a Pasadena park where children were playing, were done by men without any identification, although the community members assumed they were Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

ICE and Department of Homeland Security have not responded to the Pasadena Police to identify who was conducting these raids and have not answered the phone, said Mayor Victor Gordo.

The lack of identification, or notice to local police, and confirmed reports of vigilantes impersonating ICE agents in other states, has led to the new bill.

“They open up the opportunity of vigilantes to infiltrate our community,” said Perez at a press briefing in front of Pasadena City Hall. “We need to find out who is actually conducting immigration enforcement on our streets.”

At least three states have arrested and charged individuals with impersonating ICE officers.

A South Carolina man was charged with kidnapping after allegedly detaining a group of Latino men. In North Carolina, Carl Thomas Bennett was arrested for allegedly impersonating an ICE officer and sexual assaulting a woman at a Motel 6, then saying he would deport her if she didn’t comply with his demands. Also, a Temple University student in Philadelphia was charged with impersonating an ICE officer.

“With the rise in impersonation claims and the ensuing fear and confusion being created, there is a clear need for stronger, more consistent standards for law enforcement identification,” Perez said.

ICE has stated anyone caught impersonating one of their agents will face prosecution.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents are highly trained and dedicated professionals who are sworn to uphold the law, protect the American people and support U.S. national security interests,” read an ICE statement. “ICE strongly condemns the impersonation of its officers or agents.”

Perez said the idea of impersonators, or even regular citizens deputized to arrest those suspected of being in the county illegally, comes from witnesses who say they don’t act like trained professionals.

“Their appearance, tactics and behavior do not look like normal law enforcement practices,” she said.

“We have anonymous thugs who are smashing windows, dragging people from their workplaces with no IDs. That is not law enforcement. That is kidnapping,” said Assemblymember Elhawary. “Wear your badge. Show your face. Identify yourself. Or get the hell out of our neighborhoods.”

Francisco Castañon said he tried to take a photo of a car driving a black Dodge Charger with tinted windows erratically through the shopping center in Pasadena on Wednesday, June 18, after two were arrested, apparently by federal agents, from a LA Metro bus stop nearby. In the back seat of the car were barricades.

Castañon, a businessman who was there checking to see if his employees were OK, said the driver of the sports car jumped out of the vehicle, leaving it in the middle of a busy intersection, and pointed a gun at him. He was not wearing a uniform, was dressed in street clothes and his face was covered with a cloth mask.

“He was most likely a bounty hunter who was contracted,” he said. “What I experienced was someone operating in the shadows, with no oversight.”

Sandra Garcia, a lifelong Pasadena resident and U.S. citizen, received a call Saturday at work from her mother who was selling tamales at Villa Parke and in a state of panic. Garcia confronted the person whom Latino folks said was an immigration agent harassing Latinos in the park. He did not show any identification, was wearing a mask, jeans and a T-shirt.

She was protecting her mom, telling others at the park to leave. “He yelled at me, told me to ‘shut up.’ Or else he was going to send me back to my country,” she said. “My family are hard-working street vendors. They are not criminals.”

The northwest Pasadena neighborhood with a very high percentage of Latino residents are now living in fear. They are too terrified to leave their homes, not even to buy groceries for their families, she said.

Elhawary said undocumented residents of the state, as business owners, or working in factories, stores, transportation, hotels and restaurants, contribute about $270 billion a year to the state’s economy.

Gordo said the incident of a supposed ICE agent brandishing a gun and pointing it at dozens of residents, protesters and onlookers could have resulted in the shooting of innocent people. He said the actions of that individual clearly was one who was not trained in police tactics, and he believed he was there to escalate the situation.

“Our own federal government are employing the same tactics those did in Nazi Germany. We now see those same people pretending to be police officers, pretending to be enforcing the law but they are not,” said Gordo.

“They are not identifying themselves, wearing masks, chasing down people and carrying large weapons and wielding those weapons against members of the public for taking a picture,” he said.

A similar bill authored by Democratic State Sen. Scott Wiener from the Bay Area requires all law enforcement officials show their faces and also be identifiable by uniform. It also says the uniform should include their name.

Wiener and co-author State Sen Jesse Arreguin, said the proposal seeks to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement. It will also look to prevent people trying to impersonate law enforcement, they said.

“We are seeing more and more law enforcement officers, particularly at the federal level, covering their faces entirely, not identifying themselves at all and, at times, even wearing army fatigues where we can’t tell if these are law enforcement officers or a vigilante militia,” Wiener said.

Perez said she is working with Wiener and views the two bills as a package. SB 805 will be heard in the Assembly later this summer. It then must be approved by the Senate by Sept. 12. Gov. Gavin Newsom has 30 days to sign the bill. If it becomes law, it will take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

The bills to stop so-called law enforcement from covering their faces goes against President Trump’s idea to make it illegal for protesters to wear face masks. Some say that makes more sense because they are protecting themselves from tear gas or other airborne pollutants.

Sandra Garcia, who was not covering her face on Monday, and did not as she confronted men threatening to deport her, a U.S. citizen, on Saturday, said she won’t give up the fight.

“I will continue to warn people in my community. I will continue to speak up for their rights and everybody’s rights,” she said, holding back tears. “Because God is with us.”

Mayra  Macedo-Nolan, executive director of the Clergy Community Coalition, based in Pasadena, said she will hold clergy, lawmakers and those who misuse the Scriptures to support hate and racism accountable.

She hinted at sects of evangelical Christians who support the MAGA movement, seeing Trump as a savior, like Jesus Christ. She said many cherry pick out of the Bible to support a false narrative.

She quoted from the book of Isaiah, in the Old Testament of the Bible, who said welcoming the outsider, the poor, even immigrants, is a commandment of God and a precept engrained in the laws of the ancient nation of Israel.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, withhold justice from the oppressed,” she said, quoting from the prophet Isaiah. “Be on the side of God, not on the side of evil,” she said.