California bans all masking, including by ICE agents

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of bills on Saturday banning masking statewide, as part of a concentrated effort to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from concealing their identities during raids.

The five bills Newsom signed into law Saturday “make California the first state in the nation to prohibit federal law enforcement officers, including ICE, from hiding their identities,” according to a press release from his office.

The anti-ICE moves also make “it less likely that federal immigration enforcement officers target children in classrooms and patients in hospitals,” the statement continued.

Under the new legislation, law and immigrant enforcement officers must remain identifiable “by name or badge number,” and “masks are not to be worn except when absolutely necessary.”

Newsome’s office did not say how they would enforce such a rule against a federal agency, though they did talk at length about how much they oppose ICE’s recent actions.

“ICE agents have wrongfully arrested citizens, concealed their identities, and undermined transparency,” the statement adds. “They dismantled rules that once kept enforcement away from schools, hospitals, and churches, fueling student absences and eroding community trust.

“Our places of learning and healing must never be turned into the hunting grounds this federal administration has tried to make them out to be,” Newsom’s statement continues. “I have sat with mothers who are afraid to send their children to school, and with farmworker families who live every day with the fear of being torn apart. No family should ever have to carry that weight. California is choosing true public safety.”

The new law will require notification to families when immigration enforcement intends on visiting a school.

Emergency rooms and other nonpublic areas within hospitals are off limits to immigration enforcement “without a judicial warrant or court order, and it clarifies that immigration information collected by a health care provider is protected as medical information.”

Newsom announced the new laws hours after taking to X to tease Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying she was about to have “a bad day.”

Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said he referred the X post the U.S. Secret Service for a threat assessment.