A Democratic congressman wants ICE agents to wear QR codes on their uniforms so you can scan them and find out who’s terrorizing your neighborhood. Yes, really.
WHAT’S GOING ON: Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York is introducing the “Quick Recognition (QR) Act,” which would require all ICE and CBP agents to sport scannable codes linking to their name, badge number, agency, and photo.
The idea, according to his office, is that people could identify officers “from afar without having to engage” with them—especially since agents have been obscuring their faces and badges and “not reacting positively to requests for identification.”
BUT BUT BUT: There’s this ancient technology called a “badge with a name on it” that has worked for, oh, generations.
Critics are pointing out that requiring readable text on uniforms—like the Dominican Republic police Torres cited as inspiration, who have QR codes AND visible names and ranks—would be far more practical than making people pull out their phones to identify masked federal agents.
And about those phones: What happens when you don’t have one? Or when agents take it? ProPublica just reported on a 16-year-old in Houston who was put in a chokehold by federal agents who then stole his phone and apparently sold it at a vending machine near an ICE detention center. Good luck scanning that QR code.
OF COURSE: The deeper problem isn’t the identification method—it’s that Trump’s masked goons simply don’t follow rules.
The ICE agent who shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, later identified as Jonathan Ross, had his face covered and no visible individual identification. His vest just said “police” in big letters and “federal agent” in tiny ones. Reporters only identified him after DHS accidentally dropped a clue about his work history.
As one Bluesky user put it: “Scanning the officers’ QR codes as they bash my face in and steal my phone.”
WHY IT MATTERS: Torres’s heart seems to be in the right place—accountability for federal agents running amok across the country. But the legislation exposes a frustrating pattern: Democrats proposing tech solutions to what is fundamentally a lawlessness problem. QR codes won’t stop agents from covering their faces, refusing to identify themselves, or shooting unarmed women.
What might help? Actually enforcing existing laws requiring identification, or—radical thought—not deploying secret police to terrorize communities in the first place.
The bill is expected to be introduced next week. Don’t hold your breath on it passing a Republican House.