The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked California from enforcing a law that would bar federal immigration agents from wearing masks during operations. The full stay halts the state's mask ban while litigation continues, preserving a lower court's earlier decision that found the law unconstitutionally singled out federal officers.
Newsmax reported that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the ruling on X:
"The 9th Circuit has now issued a FULL stay blocking California's ban on masks for federal law enforcement agents."
She followed with a pointed message about the stakes involved:
"Law enforcement officers risk their lives for us, only to be doxxed by radical anti-police activists. Unacceptable."
That word, "doxxed," is doing a lot of work. And it should. Because that's exactly what California's law was designed to facilitate, whether its authors admit it or not.
California's law took effect Jan. 1. Dubbed the "No Secret Police Act" by supporters, the measure signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom made it a misdemeanor for many law enforcement officers, including federal officers, to wear a mask or other disguise while interacting with the public during official duties. It carved out exceptions for:
On its face, the law presented itself as a transparency measure. In practice, it was a weapon aimed squarely at federal immigration enforcement. Masked federal immigration operations drew protests and public scrutiny in 2025, and Sacramento responded not by engaging the underlying policy debate but by trying to strip agents of basic operational safety.
The Trump administration argued the measure would endanger agents and intrude on federal authority. The Justice Department sued California in November, contending the state cannot regulate how federal officers carry out their duties and that the law violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder blocked California from enforcing the mask restrictions against federal officers. Her reasoning was straightforward: the law unlawfully discriminated against the federal government because it exempted certain state law enforcement agencies while applying to federal agents.
Read that again. California wrote a law that let its own officers mask up in certain situations but criminalized the same conduct by federal agents. That's not a transparency principle. That's a targeting mechanism.
Snyder did allow California to enforce a separate state requirement that law enforcement officers display visible identification showing their agency and badge number, except when working undercover. Newsom called that portion of the ruling "a clear win for the rule of law." A curious bit of spin, given that the central feature of his own law was just struck down.
The 9th Circuit's full stay now keeps Snyder's block firmly in place while the case moves through the appellate process.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli put it plainly:
"The state of California needs to familiarize itself with the Supremacy Clause."
"It does not have the authority to regulate federal agents. This is another key win for the Justice Department."
This is a foundational point that California's political leadership keeps pretending doesn't exist. States do not get to dictate the operational procedures of federal law enforcement. They never have. The Supremacy Clause is not ambiguous on this question, and no amount of progressive branding changes the constitutional math.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, the bill's author, said after the district court ruling that he would move quickly to revise the law to apply more uniformly across law enforcement agencies.
In other words, the state already conceded the discrimination problem at the heart of the statute. The fix Wiener is proposing is not a principled defense of the original law. It's an admission that the law was built on a double standard.
This was never about masks. California has spent years constructing an elaborate legal infrastructure designed to obstruct federal immigration enforcement. Every new bill, every new regulation, every new "sanctuary" policy serves the same purpose: make it harder, more dangerous, and more politically costly for the federal government to enforce the law within California's borders.
The mask ban was one more brick in that wall. By exposing the identities of federal agents conducting lawful operations, the state was effectively outsourcing intimidation to activist networks. Officers who arrest illegal immigrants in communities where that enforcement is politically unpopular become targets. Their names circulate. Their faces appear online. Their families face threats.
Bondi framed the stakes correctly:
"This crucial ruling protects our brave men and women in the field. We will not stop fighting bad laws like these in California and across the country."
The Justice Department has now won at the district level and secured a full stay from the 9th Circuit, a court not historically known for its enthusiasm for federal enforcement actions. That tells you how far outside the constitutional lines California wandered with this law.
Sacramento will keep testing boundaries. The courts will keep drawing them. But for now, the agents enforcing federal law in California can do their jobs without the state government painting targets on their backs.
