Washington DC - President Donald Trump's administration has turned down a request to equip Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with body cameras that automatically activate.
On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office published a report that recommended bodycams for agents be updated so that they automatically begin filming in situations when they are required to be activated, such as during arrests, searches, detentions, and when an agent draws their weapons.
The report argued that "the inability to capture footage could negatively impact prospects for public engagement, successful data, enforcement, and other partnerships, including a loss of public confidence and transparency."
According to Axios, the Department of Homeland Security rejected the recommendation, arguing that such a change "presents significant operational risks, including inadvertent or false activations during routine movement."
The GAO reportedly pushed back, calling out DHS for not offering any alternative safeguards to mitigate the risks of critical encounters going unrecorded.
Since taking office for his second term, President Trump has sent ICE and other federal agents to Democratic-run cities across the US to carry out immigration sweeps. There have since been countless incidents of excessive use of force and several in which people have been fatally shot by agents.
Critics have been demanding accountability and changes to procedures, but the Trump administration has adamantly refused to do so, regularly arguing in favor of hiding agents' privacies and rights.
Amid pressure from Democrats, Congress finally passed a bill in April to fund bodycams for agents, but in their report, GAO notes that without standards on using them, it's unclear what the goal is.