The Week Evening Review
Masked ICE agents, Mamdani's background, and tensions between Thailand and Cambodia

 
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION

Are masked ICE agents America's new secret police?

The face of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is hidden. Masked ICE agents are swooping into American cities to detain and deport suspected migrants. Critics say those masks carry echoes of "secret police" in authoritarian countries. 

Masked agents have become a "calling card" of the administration, said CNN. Videos have captured the concealed officers arresting suspected migrants even though they are "not wearing uniforms or displaying badges." 

Agents conducting deportation operations without identifying themselves is "pretty unprecedented to see at this scale," said former ICE official Scott Shuchart. ICE officials say agents have "received death threats and been harassed online," said The Associated Press. But the practice has raised fears of "getting snatched off the street by secret police," said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
 
What did the commentators say?
What ICE agents are doing is "outrageous and mostly legal," said Kimberly Wehle at The Hill. The masks and lack of identification make it "impossible" for ordinary citizens to know whether the people making arrests are "federal officials rather than vigilantes." But there's "no constitutional obligation" that law enforcement officers identify themselves. 

All this reveals "glaring blind spots" in the law, which is premised on the idea that government officials "mostly act in good faith," said Wehle. ICE may be acting badly, but the law is "ill-equipped to deal with it." 

Masking is "not good law enforcement practice," said Raul A. Reyes at the Los Angeles Times. Agents who hide their identities have "impunity" to "make unlawful arrests, without the possibility of public accountability." 

All of this "undermines agents' authority," but it "endangers public safety, as well," because it "risks people interfering with enforcement actions that look more like kidnappings," said Reyes. The public's need for accountability "strongly outweighs any rationale for agents' anonymity." 

What next?
There has been a "spate of arrests" of civilians impersonating ICE agents, said The Guardian. Experts are warning that ICE's practice of masking "makes it easier for imposters to pose as federal officers." That's a "public safety threat," said Mike German, a former FBI agent.

Democrats want more transparency. New York leaders held a news conference last week to promote Rep. Nydia Velázquez's (D-N.Y.) federal "No Masks for ICE" bill, said WABC. The legislation would ban agents from wearing masks and require them to "clearly display their name and agency" while making arrests.

 
 
QUOTE OF THE DAY

'Physically, I'm half the size and half the weight, but my spirit is not broken. Maybe it's even stronger.' 

Sergei Tikhanovsky, a Belarusian opposition leader, giving his first interview to the BBC after being released, at the behest of the U.S., after five years of solitary confinement in a high-security Belarusian prison for standing up to President Alexander Lukashenko. He is now living in exile. 

 
 
IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Mamdani: the progressive likely to be NYC's mayor

New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani's unexpected victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary makes him the presumptive favorite to be the city's next chief executive. While the city has not released a final result due to ranked-choice votes still being tallied, his leading opponent, scandal-plagued former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has conceded. Mamdani's rise to prominence has been swift, and observers are already grappling with the implications of his victory for national politics.

Background
Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian Muslim parents but raised in New York City after his family moved there when he was 7. He attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he "co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine," said the BBC. 

He became an American citizen in 2018 and was elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020. There, he "focused primarily on housing and transportation reform" and was "praised by progressive voters for the ambition of his bills," said Time.

The latest
New York City's incumbent mayor, Democrat turned Independent Eric Adams, is running for reelection but was indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery charges in September 2024. So his legal troubles and unpopularity left this year's race wide open. 

Cuomo entered the race after resigning from office in 2021 due to a flurry of sexual harassment allegations. But Mamdani was able to consolidate the support of anti-Cuomo factions, despite the Democratic Party's old guard backing Cuomo and providing him an "impressive list of endorsements," said The Nation.

Mamdani pulled off his stunning victory by campaigning on an unapologetically progressive platform of "slightly higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, a rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments, free buses, universal child care and more," said The New Yorker. He also courted the city's 750,000 Muslims and "released ads in Urdu, Hindi and Bangla," said New York magazine. 

The reaction
Republicans relished the opportunity to tie national Democrats to Mamdani. The National Republican Congressional Committee called him the "new face of the Democrat Party" and said his policies are "straight out of a socialist nightmare." 

Some criticism of him certainly appeared to be racially motivated. "Many a frothing xenophobe can't fathom the idea" of New York City electing a Muslim mayor, said Rolling Stone. And his win is already "sparking fresh clashes between moderates and liberals about Democrats' best path back to national relevance," said The Washington Post.

 
 

Statistic of the day

20,717: The number of babies born in South Korea in April 2025, according to the country's official birth statistics. This marks an 8.7% increase from April 2024 and is South Korea's highest month-to-month birthrate growth since 1991. The country has been working to increase its fertility rate, which has long been the world's lowest.

 
 
the explainer

Tensions mount between Thailand and Cambodia

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Bangkok for a second weekend to demand the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, after a leaked phone call appeared to show her appeasing Cambodia's de facto leader, Hun Sen. Paetongtarn called Sen "uncle" and criticized a Thai military commander during the 17-minute call, which came amid a spike in tensions between the two countries, the latest flare-up in a long-running dispute over their border. 

What are the origins of the dispute? 
French colonial administrators created the 508-mile border in 1907, when Cambodia was part of French Indochina. It was meant to follow the "natural watershed line" between the two countries, but Thailand has never accepted what it sees as incursions into historically Thai territory, said Reuters.

Attempts to reach an agreement over the years have failed to make significant headway. In the meantime, there have been sporadic military skirmishes between border guards.

Why has it flared up recently? 
In May, a clash between Thai and Cambodian forces in a disputed area left a Cambodian soldier dead. The Cambodian government accused Thai soldiers of opening fire on one of its border posts. The Thai government, however, claimed its troops were defending themselves after Cambodian soldiers opened fire.

Thailand has closed off land crossings to Cambodia multiple times in recent weeks, heavily impacting trade, while Cambodia has banned Thai imports, including produce, electricity, films and TV shows. Thailand's Department of Foreign Trade has warned that the dispute could cost the country 60 billion baht ($30.9 million) in lost trade if disruption continues until the end of the year.

Could it bring down the Thai government? 
Following the leaked phone call, the conservative Bhumjaithai Party said it would be pulling out of its coalition with Paetongtarn's center-left Pheu Thai party, leaving her with little chance of staying in power. She will face a vote of no confidence in parliament on Thursday. Meanwhile, Thailand's constitutional court will convene tomorrow to consider a suit alleging that the phone call amounted to treason, said the Thai Examiner, with "potentially explosive" ramifications.

 
 

Good day 🇩🇰

… for Danish citizens. Denmark plans to change its laws to ensure that Danes own the copyright to their facial features, body and voice. This is part of an effort to protect its people against the creation of AI-generated deepfakes.

 
 

Bad day 🎾

… for line judges. Wimbledon will no longer use them for the first time in its 148-year history, falling in step with the U.S. and Australian Opens. The U.K. tournament will trust the job to an electronic line-calling system that uses Hawk-Eye technology. Of the 300 line judges previously employed, 80 will remain to be used as "match assistants."

 
 
Picture of the day

Water world

Hundreds of people on personal watercrafts take part in the annual NYC Jet Ski Invasion on Manhattan's East River near the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.
Lokman Vural Elibol / Anadolu via Getty Images

 
 
Puzzles

Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section, which also includes sudoku and codewords

 
 
The Week recommends

In the complicated terminology of Hollywood, a reboot is a film that sets aside some or all of a series' or franchise's previous timelines, ideas or characters while still preserving the core narrative. The very best reboots, like the ones below, remind audiences of what they love about a story, without sacrificing originality.

'Batman Begins' (2005)
The 'Batman' superhero franchise had fallen on hard times before it was handed over to auteur director Christopher Nolan. Starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, some critics assailed the film as "humorless, cold and hyperrealistic," said Forbes. But the movie succeeded because it gave audiences a "good story that was well-told and well-performed." 

'Evil Dead' (2013)
Director Fede Alvarez's reboot of the frequently ripped-off 1980s-era horror-comedy series follows a group of twentysomethings who rent a cabin in the wilderness and inadvertently summon a demonic force that eliminates them one by one. The film "sweeps along on its own crazy momentum," said Den of Geek, to a conclusion whose "last half an hour is a joyously nasty exercise in gruesome horror."

'Casino Royale' (2006)
The James Bond espionage franchise is no stranger to reinvention given how many men have played the globe-trotting British spy. After four decades, relative newcomer Daniel Craig (pictured above) was cast as a glowering Bond. The result was a "smaller, less ambitious Bond that somehow felt grander and more audacious," said The Guardian. Craig would play Bond in four more movies, concluding with "No Time to Die" (2021).

 
 

Poll watch

Nearly three-fifths of Americans (58%) think religious chaplains should be allowed to provide student services in public schools, according to an AP-NORC survey. However, the poll of 1,158 adults found less support for other religious aspects in schools, with only 44% thinking teachers should be allowed to lead a prayer in class. 

 
 
INSTANT OPINION

Today's best commentary

'China's threat to Tibet's future should be a global concern'
Brahma Chellaney at The Hill
Xi Jinping is "waiting for the Dalai Lama" to "pass away so that Beijing can impose its own puppet as the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism," says Brahma Chellaney. This "would be akin to the Italian government installing a state-appointed pope to lead the Catholic Church, a brazen affront to religious freedom." With Xi's "regime intensifying efforts to erase Tibetan culture, language and identity, the looming succession of the Dalai Lama marks a pivotal and dangerous turning point."

'This punctuation mark is semi-dead. People have thoughts.'
Mark Lasswell at The Washington Post
Punctuation marks are "wee items capable of causing a tremendous release of energy," says Mark Lasswell. No "piece of punctuation, though, stirs people up more than the humble semicolon." But "now the semicolon is dead, or semi-dead." A study of semicolon use in "U.S. publishing from 1920 to 2019 saw a dramatic slide." But the semicolon will "never completely go away, not as long as there are grown-ups around who still think punctuation emoticons are fun."

'Want to fix climate change? Stop talking about saving the planet.'
Adam Met at USA Today
The words 'climate change' are "starting to lose their power," says Adam Met. Not "because the crisis isn't real — it is — but because the language we use to talk about it is too abstract, too politicized and too divorced from the things most Americans actually care about: jobs, innovation, pride and purpose." We "need to stop framing climate action around the climate." We must "tell the truth that's hiding in plain sight: This is the next American industrial revolution."

 
 
WORD OF THE DAY

marginalia

Scribbles and annotations in the margins of a book. A new generation of readers is transforming its books into "aesthetic artifacts," said The Guardian. Bookworms are annotating their favorite novels with marginalia and color-coded sticky tabs, and some even seek out books "annotated by other readers in secondhand shops" for a "spark of connection with the past."

 
 

Evening Review was written and edited by Nadia Croes, David Faris, Scott Hocker, Justin Klawans, Joel Mathis, Summer Meza, Anahi Valenzuela and Richard Windsor, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images / AP; Noam Galai / Getty Images; Lauren DeCicca / Getty Images; Greg Williams / Handout / Getty Images