All Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field agents will be equipped with body cameras by the end of the month, acting ICE Director David Venturella said. However, the footage acquired by the devices would only be released to the public if it is in “the best interests of the agency,” according to ICE. The policy raises questions about how body cameras are meant to be used in law enforcement, as well as whom they are meant to protect.

Venturella said in his statement last week that the body cameras would help the agency uphold its commitment to “transparency and accountability.” 

However, a spokesperson for ICE tells TIME that the body cameras are needed because “the media and sanctuary politicians consistently spread smears about our law enforcement.”

This raises the question: Are the cameras meant to hold ICE agents accountable—or protect the agency?

White House “border czar” Tom Homan indicated that the cameras could be useful for both purposes, saying “body cameras are the way to go” to increase transparency between the agency and the public—but they can also provide insights about split-second behavior under high pressure in the field.

“I think body cameras let the American people know what that officer sees when he takes that action,” Homan said on CBS’s Face the Nation in July. On Fox & Friends Weekend that same month, he went further, saying that body cameras “exonerate more law enforcement than ​they convict.”

Who they ultimately benefit largely depends on how they are used—in theory and in practice, experts tell TIME.

“Body-worn cameras are only as good as their policies,” says Christopher Schneider, sociologist and professor at Brandon University. 

The policies governing body cameras must determine not only when agents are recording, experts say, but also what happens to the footage the cameras collect.

Kirk Burkhalter, a New York Law School professor and former detective with the New York Police Department, believes it is a smart move toward course-correcting after multiple fatal shootings this year by ICE. He calls the rollout of body-worn cameras a “very important first step.”

Why did ICE start using body cameras?

Body cameras became a point of contention after two protesters were killed by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers in Minneapolis in January. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti both led to disputes about what transpired and whether the use of force was warranted, leading DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to promise in February that agents would be equipped with body cameras going forward. 

A policy regarding their use was established that same month, and Congress approved $20 million in funds for purchasing and operating ICE body cameras in April.

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Body cameras had been issued to more than half of field offices by July, when agents shot and killed two people within the span of a week: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, on July 7, and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero on July 13 in Biddeford, Maine. Neither of the incidents were captured by body cameras, though The Intercept reported that the officers in Maine were equipped with recording devices that they were unable to use.

Members of Congress promptly called for stricter oversight.

“In shooting after shooting, we are told that there is no body-worn camera footage of the incident and asked to accept DHS’s account of the incident. Time and again, that account turns out to be a blatant falsehood,” a letter signed by dozens of senators on July 18 said.

But putting cameras in agents’ hands is just a start; they must also be recording when it matters. 

When are ICE agents required to turn on body cameras?

The policy says agents should activate cameras “as soon as practicable” at the beginning of an enforcement activity and deactivate them once the activity concludes. Agents who fail to activate their cameras must provide a written explanation, but the policy does not spell out disciplinary consequences for failing to record an encounter.

This is not dissimilar from policies used by other law enforcement agencies, which also typically stop short of codifying disciplinary steps, Schneider says. 

“You would think that if an officer was found after an investigation to have intentionally turned the camera off or not turned it on, to engage in misconduct or pretend, you would think they would be fired for that,” he says. “You won’t find that in a policy.”

Phillip Atiba Solomon, professor at Yale University and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity, says that comprehensive policy should not leave key questions unanswered, such as: “What are the consequences if you disobey those rules?”

“A piece of legislation without an enforcement mechanism is a polite request,” he tells TIME.

The policy does require “Field Responsible Officials” to provide operational training to their agents “at least yearly,” focusing on their handling of recordings, privacy compliance, procedures for redacting and sharing data, and civil rights considerations. 

But knowing how to use the cameras is different from establishing how useful they actually are in the field.

How effective are body cameras in law enforcement?

Schneider says there is a presiding belief that the presence of body cameras will influence what transpires between civilians and law enforcement officers. Specifically, there is an assumption that they serve as a deterrent.

“The idea is that if a camera is on, of course the officer is not going to engage in misconduct or brutality, and of course people are going to comply with police,” Schneider says. “That’s profoundly untrue.”

He points to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 as an example, since the police officers involved were wearing active cameras while the incident unfolded. 

Studies show mixed evidence. Some found that body cameras reduce use-of-force incidents and civilian complaints. But when 70 such studies were analyzed together, they showed “no consistent or statistically significant effects,” according to the National Institute of Justice.

Part of the reasoning for this discrepancy, according to Solomon, is that people must believe that what they are doing is wrong in order for them to change their behavior when being observed. In a randomized controlled study that involved thousands of police officers in 2019, researchers wrote that “cameras did not meaningfully affect police behavior on a range of outcomes, including complaints and use of force.”

“Officers—who are not ICE but are regular municipal law enforcement—didn’t think that what they were doing was a problem, so we didn’t see significant reductions in use of force,” Solomon says of the study. 

They must also believe that there will be consequences for their actions, he says. But the Trump Administration’s staunch defense of ICE in the aftermath of this year’s deadly shootings suggests that this component might also be lacking.

In addition to deterrence, body cameras also offer point-of-view documentation.

“The reason why it’s so helpful is because it gives the vantage point of the law enforcement officer who’s wearing the camera, and you can kind of see and hear what they see and hear,” Burkhalter says. This can give judges, juries, legislators, and the general public a clearer sense of why they responded the way they did at the time.

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Without such video evidence, the public could be left with difficult questions about what exactly transpired in the critical moments of officer-involved fatalities. 

When Silverio Villegas González was killed by ICE agents in September 2025 in Illinois, body camera footage captured by local police officers revealed key details about the incident. DHS claimed its officer was “seriously injured” during the altercation and feared for his own life. However, the footage later showed that the officer said his injuries were “nothing major,” undercutting his explanation of events.

Third-party video evidence was similarly instrumental in showing what transpired when officers shot and killed Good in Minneapolis in January. DHS claimed that Good was a “violent rioter” who had tried to run over agents with her car. It said that its officer then fired “defensive shots.” But cell phone footage captured by bystanders contradicted that account.

“The cameras dispel the rumor mill, preventing us from looking at some footage from someone’s doorbell cam 50 feet away and trying to decipher what someone had in their hand or what they didn’t have in their hand,” Burkhalter says.

Experts have acknowledged, however, that body camera footage is limited—for example, it does not show officers’ facial expressions and may miss key details that are just out of frame.

That makes how it is reviewed, edited, and distributed even more essential.

Who will have access to footage?

When deterrence fails, and use-of-force incidents take place, the footage is paramount in determining who is responsible and paving a path for justice. That raises the question of who has access to the footage and how it can be used.

ICE’s body camera footage will be immediately available to internal personnel and investigators, its policy says, but public access will be strictly restricted and controlled.

“Footage will be available as appropriate for official purposes,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement to TIME. “Body camera footage must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis due to privacy concerns for innocent bystanders.”

Burkhalter says that the agency’s approach aligns generally with existing law enforcement policies.

“I haven’t reviewed all local law policies, but I can assure you that very few agencies have an administrative regulation that says we will release all body cam footage within ‘X’ amount of hours,” he says. “That would just be impossible, given most of those cases involve some type of criminal investigation.”

Policies vary by municipality. For the NYPD, for example, it is codified that body-worn camera footage will be released within 30 calendar days of a critical incident, which includes “incidents involving the discharge of a firearm by an officer that result in a member of the public being struck, as well as police use of force that results in serious injury or death.” Other cities require the police commissioner to personally sign off on the release of footage that may be of interest to the public.

The ICE policy says that when serious bodily injury or death in custody is captured on camera, ICE must “expeditiously review the footage,” and if it is determined it is in the “best interests” of the agency, then it must publicly release within 72 hours of the event or “as soon as operationally feasible.”

Given how the policy is written, and how ICE has operated in recent years, Burkhalter says, “I don’t see … the agency releasing footage that is going to seriously harm their public image.”

The footage is also subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), giving members of the public another avenue to seek recordings regardless of whether the agency chooses to release them. But a FOIA request does not guarantee disclosure: Footage may be withheld or redacted under applicable exemptions, and requests can take considerable time to resolve.

Schneider’s concern is that, without more explicit guidelines about what acting in its own “best interests” means, the agency could be inconsistent and selective about releasing records. For example, it might prioritize the distribution of footage that puts the agency in a good light or supports the Trump Administration’s deportation agenda.

“Probably they’re going to release some of those videos that involve undocumented immigrants who are armed and are also criminals,” he says. “Some people might start assuming because of what’s being shared that, ‘Oh well, maybe all these undocumented immigrants are criminals and have weapons—because this is all I see.’”

Who else are the cameras watching?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other activist groups generally support the use of body cameras, but they have also warned that without good guardrails, “They risk becoming just another police surveillance device—and one with very real potential to invade privacy.”

Many municipalities require law enforcement officers to turn off their body-worn cameras during sensitive encounters, such as meeting with a confidential informant. ICE does not address such circumstances head-on, but it outlines exceptions for when body-worn cameras would not be worn or turned on, including when an agent is engaging in undercover activity; conducting interviews inside jails, prisons, or detention centers; and aboard commercial flights.

Solomon notes that privacy is one of his biggest concerns—especially because the Trump Administration has not ruled out the presence of ICE officers at voting sites in November. 

Although DHS previously told election officials that ICE would not target polling locations, both Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Trump have since declined to categorically rule out a federal immigration enforcement presence at the polls.

ICE officers with recording devices could deter voters from turning out, he explains: “If you’re not sure, or if you’ve got a record, and you just don’t want to be on the grid, you are not going to the polling place.”

Those concerns come amid a broader debate over how law enforcement agencies use the data collected by surveillance technology. Recently, that has been expressed through a widening concern about the use of Flock cameras: automatic license plate readers that are cropping up in major cities in the U.S. Residents worry about the technology being used to identify and track people traveling to sensitive locations like protests and specialized health care facilities. There have already been reports from watchdog organizations that officers have used the cameras to stalk their romantic interests.

Solomon therefore expressed skepticism about equipping thousands of DHS field agents, across the country, with even more advanced surveillance tools.

“We are giving folks who have been tasked with terrorizing vulnerable communities the ability to further surveil those communities,” Solomon says. “That’s not much of a step forward, if you ask me.”