The Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to stop a new California law that bans federal officers — including immigration agents — from wearing masks.
Attorneys for the Department of Justice are in federal court on Wednesday, arguing that California’s new law interferes with federal enforcement operations.
The legislation signed by Gov.Gavin Newsom prohibits federal immigration agents and other law enforcement officers from wearing masks.
“California is going to make the argument that they have the power to impose this ban because what they’re doing is just imposing a generally applicable law like a traffic safety law,” said Jessica Levinson from Loyola Law School.
The attorney for the federal government said this is an attempt to regulate federal law enforcement officers. He claimed people are tracking and doxxing ICE officers, and there has been an 8,000% increase in threats made against them.
“People are using facial recognition, they’re using all kinds of sophisticated AI platforms to identify these people in real time, identify our agents, and then to show up at their homes and harass them. That’s what this is about. This is about protecting the safety and privacy of our agents,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
State lawmakers approved the measure after masked federal officers began detaining people as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation program.
California says the law prevents abuse by making sure officers are identifiable.
The judge indicated that the federal government does have a strong argument that this could be discrimination against federal agents, since some California state law enforcement is exempt.
“If you look at law, and you look at precedent, the federal government has a good argument to make here that states cannot, in fact, impose these types of restrictions on federal officers,” Levinson said.
“If they are regulating federal law enforcement, and if that’s what this law does, it will be struck down. And we’re confident, whether it’s at this District Court level or the Ninth Circuit-level of the Supreme Court, this law will be struck down,” Essayli said.
It’s unknown exactly when the judge will make a decision, but she did say it will be “sooner rather than later.”
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