Ryan J. Foley, The Associated press

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to equip officers with body cameras in the next two months but the agency’s policy gives it broad control over what footage will be made public by specifying 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 President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown have intensified pressure for accountability that the cameras could provide.

But the agency’s body-worn camera policy could mean taxpayers who are pitching in tens of millions of dollars to pay for the cameras may be kept in the dark about some high-profile confrontations, at least in their immediate aftermath.

The policy says ICE will promptly release video of shootings and other encounters in which its agents cause death or serious injury only after determining “it is in the best interests of the agency” to do so. That gives its director discretion to release recordings that reflect well on the agency’s image while working to keep others secret, experts on body camera policies said.

Such selective releases are routine in some law enforcement agencies but usually not so clearly contemplated in policy, according to professor Christopher Schneider of Brandon University in Canada, a 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 favorable way possible.”

Body camera policy allows withholding some video

ICE’s policy requires officers to activate cameras during routine enforcement activities, including while making arrests, executing search warrants and responding to emergencies.

After shootings or other serious confrontations, a committee that includes top ICE officials and lawyers will review footage and recommend whether to release it promptly, according to the policy issued in February 2025.

If the answer is yes, the recording could be released within 72 hours. But if ICE’s director finds “specific and compelling circumstances” justify withholding the video, they have the authority to block or indefinitely delay the release, the policy says.

The policy does not elaborate on such circumstances, and ICE did not respond to a question from The Associated Press about how it would make such decisions.

Practices vary widely in the U.S. In Chicago, a police watchdog agency routinely releases video of shootings and other serious use-of-force incidents within 60 days. In Philadelphia, the police department very rarely uses its discretion to release video and has no policy for when to do so.

Even when footage is released, ICE’s policy will require redacting all officers’ identifying features such as faces, names and badge numbers to preserve their privacy.

Schneider, who has studied body cameras since their use began spreading a decade ago, said he does not expect ICE to release footage of fatal shootings like those last month.

He noted ICE’s sister agency, Customs and Border Protection, has not released footage of the January shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis even though it was captured on agents’ cameras. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told lawmakers in February that the video and other materials were under investigation and would be made public “when it’s appropriate.”

Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst at the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight, said that while it’s better to have body-worn camera footage than not — because courts could demand it for review — ICE’s policy makes such recordings “virtually useless.”

“Without any clear way for the public to get access to it, it doesn’t do much good,” she said Friday. “It’s not unheard of for agencies to delay or withhold or selectively edit footage at all, but to say that explicitly just really gives the game away.”

ICE says all officers are getting cameras

ICE spent $30.9 million in July to purchase body camera equipment from Axon, the Arizona-based company that also manufactures Tasers, federal records show.

The spending began one day after the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old motorist in Maine by an ICE officer with a history of violent behavior. Days earlier, another ICE officer shot and killed a Houston homebuilder driving to work.

Neither shooting was recorded with body cameras. That angered members of Congress, who had given ICE $20 million to purchase body cameras in a bill passed to end a partial government shutdown on April 30.

ICE said body cameras have been sent to more than half its field officers and the rest will receive them by the end of September. That timeline pushes back estimates from earlier public statements.

ICE officers working in the Houston area, where the agency sent more than 800 cameras, are among those who have started training, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat and member of the House Appropriations Committee.

At least one member of every arrest team will be required to have a camera, the agency said.

“I think the American people need to see what that officer sees and hears,” White House border czar Tom Homan said July 19 on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And if you look at the data, body cameras actually exonerate agents more than they, you know, provide evidence of wrongdoing.”

Releasing body-worn camera footage is in the interest of both officers and the community because it can provide context for officers’ actions, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank.

“The community has a right to know, and very often it helps put the actions of the agents in some perspective,” he said Friday, adding that ICE could “go a long way in building credibility with the larger community by being more transparent.”

Schneider said he expects ICE to release recordings that promote the agency’s mass deportation program by portraying officers as brave and immigrants as criminals.

“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.”

ICE has taken years to adopt cameras

ICE began testing body cameras in 2021 during President Joe Biden’s administration and distributed 1,400 devices three years later, saying use would expand as funding became available.

After returning to office in 2025, President Donald Trump rescinded a Biden order requiring federal law enforcement agencies to use body cameras.

ICE did not buy body cameras even after it received a historic $75 billion infusion in 2025 and began hiring thousands of new officers. The July purchases from Axon were made through an existing government contract that began in 2023, records show.

“This is not hard to deploy, but they’ve slow-rolled it,” said Jason Houser, who was ICE chief of staff under Biden and helped implement the agency’s pilot program.

Houser said the Trump administration should have equipped officers with body cameras when it expanded mass arrests and traffic stops. Doing so only after several shootings and pressure from Congress “is clearly a political response” that will not make officers or the public safer, he said.

“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.

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AP reporter Valerie Gonzalez contributed to this report.

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