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 (opens in new tab), 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.
Jason Houser, who served as chief of staff for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Joe Biden, applauded Newsom for signing the bills. “Law enforcement focused on public safety and national security is supported by all Americans,” he said, “not politically driven quotas and fear campaigns that divide officers from the people they serve.”
In a press release announcing the new laws, Newsom’s office disputed the Trump administration’s narrative about California reflexively refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Under California law, it noted, prison officials routinely turn convicted felons over to ICE.
Since Newsom took office, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred inmates to ICE custody more than 10,000 times (opens in new tab). And he twice vetoed bills that would have limited such coordination.
“The Trump administration claims to target the worst of the worst, but has instead targeted hardworking people without criminal records, including parents of U.S. citizens, and even people with legal status and part of the DACA program, while also targeting children (opens in new tab),” the governor’s announcement goes on to state. “Meanwhile, they are diverting law enforcement from focusing on child predator cases (opens in new tab), drug interdiction (opens in new tab) and other serious crimes to focus on civil immigration enforcement.”
According to the most recent available data (opens in new tab) from a key immigration database housed at Syracuse University, an estimated 70.8% of people in ICE detention have no criminal conviction.