A federal judge blocked a California law on Monday that would have banned ICE agents from wearing face coverings during operations, while upholding a requirement for agents to identify themselves.
U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruled that the state’s mask ban discriminated against federal immigration agents by exempting state police from the provision. In the ruling, Snyder noted that the law “treats federal law enforcement differently than similarly situated state law enforcement officers.” The “No Secret Police Act,” or SB 627, passed by the California Legislature last September, barred federal agents from wearing face coverings, permitting limited exceptions for undercover work, medical reasons, and protective equipment required for officer safety.
The judge left intact another California law, SB 805. This separate bill requires ICE officers to “visibly display identification that includes their agency and either a name or badge number to the public when performing their enforcement duties.”
Under direction of the Trump administration, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state of California to challenge the “No Secret Police Act” in November 2025. The DOJ lawsuit cited the Supremacy Clause, as it argued, “[T]he States have no power to ‘in any manner control[] the operations of’ the Federal Government.”
The legislation in California is the first state law of its kind. However, lawmakers in Congress have introduced a federal version of the “No Secret Police Act,” H.R. 4176. This bill would similarly require ICE officers across the nation to display identification and prohibit face coverings that conceal their identities.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, the San Francisco Democrat who authored SB 627, said in a press release, “ICE and Border Patrol are covering their faces to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability.” The senator, a longtime critic of ICE operations, described the situation as “[f]ighting a fascist regime” and said he would keep up his legislative resistance “until ICE is finally abolished.” Wiener has since announced the introduction of SB 1004, a revised proposal that would extend the mask restriction to state police “so that we can enforce CA’s mask ban against ICE, CBP, and all law enforcement.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom highlighted a portion of the ruling in a statement on X. Newsom stated that the court “upheld California’s law requiring federal agents to identify themselves,” adding that the state would “keep standing up for civil rights and our democracy.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the ruling as a “key court victory” for the Trump administration. She argued that federal agents are frequently “harassed, doxxed, obstructed, and attacked on a regular basis just for doing their jobs” and said the administration would continue defending federal law enforcement in court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli echoed the Justice Department’s position. He said the court’s ruling affirmed that states lack authority to regulate federal law enforcement, and he made the accusation that state leaders “tried to mislead the public by claiming they could prevent agents from wearing masks, making it easier to dox [sic] them.” Essayli further argued that California’s “attempts to regulate federal agents are unconstitutional and unenforceable.”
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