California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 49 on Saturday, prohibiting most law enforcement officers, including federal ICE agents, from covering their faces during operations starting January 2026, as part of measures to protect immigrants’ access to services and limit data sharing with federal authorities. Federal officials, including Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, rejected the law’s applicability to ICE, citing the Supremacy Clause, and directed agents to continue masking for safety. The signing followed Newsom’s criticism of masked ICE raids as dystopian, but a press office post stating DHS Secretary Kristi Noem would ‘have a bad day’ prompted a Secret Service threat assessment.
