Federal immigration agents will no longer be able to hide their faces while interacting with the public in California after Gov. Newsom signed a law outlawing masks for most law enforcement.
The ban, which Newsom signed this weekend and goes into effect Jan. 1, was included in a package of bills that aim to push back against what the governor called “secret police” tactics employed in the course of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Several states have proposed similar legislation, but California is the first to make it law; it remains to be seen how it will enforce the prohibition.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said he authored the No Secret Police Act, SB 627, to prevent racial profiling and authoritarian policing.
“As this authoritarian regime seeks to demolish our constitutional rights and engages in a straight-up terror campaign, California is meeting the Trump administration’s secret police tactics with strength and defiance,” he wrote in a prepared statement.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged Newsom to kill the bill, saying it puts officers and their families at risk of being “doxed” and makes them vulnerable to being targeted by “vicious criminals, including gang members, terrorists, cartel members, and murderers.”
The bill passed both Democrat-controlled chambers of the state Legislature earlier this month over the objections of Republicans and police unions, who took issue with the ban applying to local cops.
Wiener said he plans to refine the law to make it as “workable as possible” for officers acting in good faith to keep people safe.
“ICE’s secret police tactics, under Trump and Stephen Miller, are raining fear and aggression down on California and requiring us to adapt in real time,” Wiener said.
The bill carves out exemptions for state police, tactical teams, approved undercover assignments, see-through face coverings, motorcycle helmets, and various protective gear like gas and surgical masks.
Officers who knowingly flout the law could be penalized by civil infractions or misdemeanors, depending on whether the violation involved a related abuse of power like assault.
A related bill — SB 805, authored by state Sen. Sasha Pérez, D-Alhambra, and going into effect right away — requires law enforcement officers to wear their name and badge number in the line of duty, with exceptions for approved undercover work.
“No one wants masked officers roaming their communities and kidnapping people with impunity,” Wiener added. “As this authoritarian regime expands its reach into every aspect of daily life — including terrorizing people where they work, where they live, where they go to school, where they shop, where they seek health care — California will continue to stand for the rule of law and for basic freedoms.”
Also on Saturday and also taking effect immediately, Newsom signed laws to limit immigration raids in hospitals and schools.