The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday, alleging its law banning federal immigration officers from wearing face masks is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California against California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), says that the state does not have the authority to regulate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

Newsom signed the No Secret Police Act and No Vigilantes Act into law in September. The pair of measures, which take effect on Jan. 1, ban federal law enforcement officers from wearing masks while carrying out operations in the state and require non-uniformed officers to visibly display identification while performing their duties, respectively.

Before signing the acts into law, Newsom said that federal immigration officers would no longer be “hidden from accountability” while conducting operations in the Golden State.

“That’s not the America we’ve grown up in. And so we are pushing back,” the governor added at the time.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday, however, asks the court to declare that the laws violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and issue a preliminary injunction prohibiting California law enforcement officers from enforcing these laws.

The Supremacy Clause states that federal law is the “supreme Law of the Land,” usurping the authority of state law.

The suit also alleges that the California laws violate Article 5, Section 301 of the U.S. Code, which states that agency heads “may prescribe regulations for the government of his department [and] the conduct of its employees.”

In a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release on Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the California laws “discriminate against the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents.”

Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom, told The Hill Monday that the governor’s administration “will see the [DOJ] in court.”

“If the Trump administration cared half as much about public safety as it does about pardoning cop-beaters, violating people’s rights, and detaining U.S. citizens and their kids, our communities would be much safer,” she added, referencing President Trump pardoning over 1,000 individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

After Newsom signed the acts into law, the Trump administration instructed ICE officers to ignore their requirements. The Department of Homeland Security, citing an increase in threats towards ICE officers, said on the social platform X on Sept. 22, it will “NOT comply with Gavin Newsom’s unconstitutional mask ban.”

The lawsuit uses similar reasoning, saying the California laws “would recklessly endanger the lives of federal agents and their family members and compromise the operational effectiveness of federal law enforcement activities.”

Since Trump returned to office in January, ICE has conducted sweeping raids across the country, including in California. As of 2023, roughly 2.25 million undocumented migrants lived in the state, the most of any in the country, according to the Pew Research Center.

The raids received pushback in Los Angeles earlier this year, when protests in various parts of the city led Trump to deploy the California National Guard and Marine personnel, against Newsom’s wishes. A federal judge ruled the president’s move was unconstitutional in September.

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