Iowa City, US: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is moving to equip officers with body cameras within the next two months, but the agency's policy gives it broad control over what footage will be made public by specifying that any releases must be in its "best interests".
After years of delays, ICE said its field officers nationwide will have body-worn cameras by the end of September. The rollout comes after recent fatal shootings by officers enforcing US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown intensified pressure for accountability that the cameras could provide.
However, the agency's body-worn camera policy could mean taxpayers funding the programme with tens of millions of dollars may be kept in the dark about some high-profile confrontations, at least in their immediate aftermath.
The policy states that ICE will promptly release video of shootings and other encounters in which its agents cause death or serious injury only after determining that "it is in the best interests of the agency" to do so. That gives the agency's director discretion to release recordings that reflect well on ICE while withholding others, experts on body camera policies said.
Such selective releases are routine in some law enforcement agencies but are rarely stated so explicitly in policy, according to Professor Christopher Schneider of Brandon University in Canada, co-author of the book Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform.
"In some ways, ICE is saying the quiet part out loud," he said. "Body-worn cameras are being used as contemporary image-work tools to present the police to the public in the most favourable way possible."
Body camera policy allows withholding some footage
The policy requires officers to activate cameras during routine enforcement activities, including making arrests, executing search warrants and responding to emergencies.
Following shootings or other serious confrontations, a committee comprising senior ICE officials and lawyers will review the footage and recommend whether it should be released promptly, according to the body camera policy issued in February 2025.
If approved, recordings could be released within 72 hours. However, if the ICE director determines that "specific and compelling circumstances" justify withholding the footage, they have the authority to block or indefinitely delay its release.
The policy does not define what those circumstances are, and ICE did not respond to an Associated Press request for clarification.
Practices vary across the United States. In Chicago, a police oversight agency routinely releases body camera footage of shootings and other serious use-of-force incidents within 60 days. In Philadelphia, police rarely exercise their discretion to release such footage and have no formal policy governing its publication.
Even when footage is released, ICE's policy requires officers' identifying features, including faces, names and badge numbers, to be redacted to protect their privacy.
Schneider, who has researched body cameras for more than a decade, said he does not expect ICE to release footage from recent fatal shootings, including incidents last month in Houston and Maine.
He also noted that ICE's sister agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has yet to release footage of the January shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, despite it being recorded on agents' body cameras. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told lawmakers in February that the material would be released "when it's appropriate" after the investigation.
Nationwide rollout by September
ICE spent USD 30.9 million in July to purchase body camera equipment from Axon, the Arizona-based company that also manufactures Tasers, according to federal spending records.
The purchase came one day after the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old motorist in Maine by an ICE officer with a history of violent behaviour. Days earlier, another ICE officer shot and killed a homebuilder in Houston who was driving to work.
Neither incident was recorded because the officers were not wearing body cameras. Members of Congress criticised the agency, noting that lawmakers had allocated USD 20 million for body cameras in legislation passed to end a partial government shutdown on April 30.
ICE said cameras have already been distributed to more than half of its field officers, with the remainder expected to receive them by the end of September. The timeline is later than previous estimates. Senator Susan Collins said the agency had informed her the rollout would be completed by the end of August, while ICE had earlier said distribution would finish by mid-September.
Officers in the Houston area, where more than 800 cameras have been deployed, have already begun training, according to Representative Henry Cuellar, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
ICE said at least one member of every arrest team will be required to wear a body camera.
"I think the American people need to see what that officer sees and hears," White House border czar Tom Homan said on CBS News' Face the Nation on July 19. "And if you look at the data, body cameras actually exonerate agents more than they, you know, provide evidence of wrongdoing."
Schneider argued that ICE is more likely to release footage portraying officers positively and reinforcing support for its immigration enforcement programme.
"Much of what law enforcement does is convince the public that we need them and feel safe and they do all this good stuff for us," he said. "The more bad stuff the public sees, the more angry the public gets. And this causes problems for the police brand."
Years in the making
ICE began testing body cameras in 2021 during former President Joe Biden's administration and distributed 1,400 devices three years later, saying broader deployment would depend on funding.
After returning to office in 2025, President Donald Trump rescinded a Biden executive order requiring federal law enforcement agencies to use body cameras.
Despite receiving a historic USD 75 billion funding boost under Trump's signature policy legislation in 2025 and expanding its workforce, ICE delayed purchasing additional body cameras. The July acquisitions from Axon were made through an existing government contract signed in 2023.
Jason Houser, who served as ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration and helped implement the agency's body camera pilot programme, criticised the delay.
"This is not hard to deploy, but they've slow-rolled it," Houser said.
He argued that officers should have been equipped with body cameras before the expansion of mass arrests and traffic stops, adding that rolling them out only after multiple shootings and congressional pressure "is clearly a political response" that will not improve safety for either officers or the public.
"This doesn't fix the problem of putting officers in a place where they're not trained or equipped to carry out the style of operations that the administration is asking them to do," he said.
