U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not automatically turn on federal agents’ body cameras, declining a recommendation from Congress’ watchdog.
ICE agents are required to activate their cameras during arrests, searches, brief detentions and other activities. But the Department of Homeland Security told the Government Accountability Office that it wouldn’t implement a mechanism to start recording if an agent draws their weapon or stands near others who have turned on their cameras, according to a GAO report obtained by The Washington Sun before its official release Wednesday.
The stance differs from another DHS agency: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents’ cameras are set to automatically activate, according to a GAO performance audit.
Carrying out the change for ICE is unnecessary and its risks outweighed the benefits, DHS said in its Aug. 28 response to the watchdog.
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“Such triggers could result in the unauthorized recording of sensitive interactions with informants or victims, or the recording of bystanders engaged in protected First Amendment activities in areas where camera use is restricted,” the department writes.
An absence of body camera footage from agents’ field stops has come under bipartisan scrutiny following the fatal shootings of immigrants in Houston and Biddeford, Maine, in July and another shooting in Austin in September. ICE agents involved in a shooting last week in New York City were wearing body cameras that were turned on, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said during a news conference about the incident.
The GAO insisted in its report that automated cameras would increase transparency, accountability and public trust. CBP and ICE personnel the government watchdog interviewed said they were uncertain of the circumstances that would require them to turn on their cameras.
“This assurance could be particularly beneficial in situations where unexpected and unplanned incidents, unrelated to sensitive operations, result in use of force by or against personnel,” the report states.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) called ICE’s rejection of the GAO recommendation unacceptable and said he would be introducing legislation in the coming days to ensure all body cameras are automatically turned on.
“This government report shows that DHS’s body worn camera program is deficient and needs to be revamped if DHS is going to be transparent and accountable,” Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement to The Washington Sun. “Worse yet, ICE — which has shown time and again it thinks it is immune to accountability — is unwilling to implement automatic activation for its cameras, increasing the risk of missing critical recordings.”
CBP started issuing body-worn cameras in August 2021, but it took ICE until March 2024 to start doing so. Both deployment efforts paused in 2025 following an executive order from President Donald Trump at the beginning of his second term that rescinded orders from the Biden administration.
All ICE field offices received body camera equipment as of Aug. 5, Jeffrey Bobich, DHS’s executive director of financial management and systems, said in the response to the GAO.
Even when the body cameras are recording, the release of the footage they capture isn’t guaranteed. ICE policy says that the agency may withhold the release of recordings capturing serious bodily injuries or deaths under “specific and compelling circumstances justifying an objection to public release that cannot be resolved by redaction or other means.”
As of September 2025, no ICE agents had received written reprimands for lack of compliance with body camera policies, according to the report. Only one CBP agent had been reprimanded.
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