A federal appeals court struck down California’s law banning federal immigration officers from wearing masks, finding the Golden State overstepped its authority by attempting to regulate the federal government.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found California’s law violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, saying it “attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions.”
“If a state law directly regulates the conduct of the United States, it is void irrespective of whether the
regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with federal functions or operations,” the ruling said.
“Section 10 of the No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the federal government in its performance of law enforcement operations,” the ruling continued.
The panel included Circuit Judges Jacqueline Nguyen, an appointee of former President Barack Obama; Mark Bennett, an appointee of President Donald Trump; and Daniel Collins, also a Trump appointee. The ruling comes months after a federal judge in a lower district court also found the California law violated the federal law.
“The Supremacy Clause does not ‘bar[] all state regulation which may touch the activities of the Federal Government,” Bennett wrote in the ruling for the panel. “For example, the Supreme Court has suggested that States may impose ‘general rules’ regulating conduct that any ordinary citizen could perform, like a ‘statute or ordinance regulating the mode of turning at the corners of streets.’ But the Supremacy Clause does bar direct state regulation of the federal government. And that is precisely what the No Vigilantes Act does.”
“The Act does not regulate conduct that any ordinary citizen could perform,” the ruling continued. “Rather, it applies exclusively to law enforcement agencies and their officers, including federal law enforcement agencies and federal law enforcement officers. The Act thus directly regulates conduct reserved to sovereigns. And so it is barred by intergovernmental immunity, which forbids States from regulating the federal government qua government and from controlling federal governmental functions in any manner and to any degree.”
Senate Bill 627, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in September 2025, barred state and federal law enforcement from wearing masks, except for undercover work or health reasons. The Department of Justice immediately sued the state over the law and told federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to disregard it in the interim, asserting that it was unconstitutional.
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First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli celebrated the ruling Wednesday as a “huge legal victory” for federal rights in the Golden State.
California could appeal the ruling to the full bench of the Ninth Circuit or to the Supreme Court.
