A Ninth Circuit panel blocked California’s law requiring ICE agents to show visible ID, holding that states cannot regulate federal officers, a clear setback for Gov. Gavin Newsom.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered a preliminary injunction against California’s push to make Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers wear visible identification while doing their jobs.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that the state’s No Vigilantes Act violates the Supremacy Clause. The panel remanded the case with instructions to stop California from enforcing the ID mandate against federal agents. The ruling hands another courtroom win to the Trump administration in its fight with Sacramento over immigration enforcement.

The Hill reported that the Department of Justice sued California and Gov. Gavin Newsom after he signed the measure. The law demanded that plainclothes officers “shall visibly display identification” while operating in the state. A companion statute, the No Secret Police Act, barred federal officers from wearing masks during operations. Both took effect Jan. 1.

Court says states cannot regulate federal officers

The panel’s reasoning was blunt. States do not get to create the rules for federal agents carrying out federal duties.

The court wrote that the Constitution “prohibits States from directly regulating federal operations even when regulating state operations in the same manner.”

“In sum, if a state law directly regulates the governmental conduct of the United States without congressional authorization, 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 such functions or operations,”

the ruling stated. That standard leaves little room for California’s approach.

Just the News noted the panel found the United States had shown that Section 10 of the No Vigilantes Act violates the Supremacy Clause. On that basis, the public interest and the balance of equities tip “decisively” toward a preliminary injunction.

In April, the same circuit had already extended a pause on the law while the case moved forward. Wednesday’s decision converts that temporary hold into clear instructions to block the statute as applied to federal officers.

Newsom and Bonta framed the law as transparency

California Democrats cast the ID rule as a safety measure after ICE operations across the state. Newsom signed the No Vigilantes Act and sold it as oversight of federal enforcement.

At the time, Newsom said, “California is taking action to strengthen transparency, accountability, and oversight around immigration enforcement in our state.” He added, “This is about stepping up where the federal government has failed our communities.”

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office struck a similar note after the loss. “Transparency and accountability are the foundation of good law enforcement, law enforcement refusing to identify themselves undermines our collective safety,” the office said. It also told reporters, “We’re disappointed in today’s decision and reviewing the court’s opinion.”

Those lines treat a constitutional limit as a public-relations problem. The Supremacy Clause is not optional. Congress decides how federal officers operate. States do not get a veto through badge-and-name-tag rules.

Newsom has also floated larger structural changes when courts block his agenda, including warming to court-packing and Electoral College changes. The pattern is consistent: when federal authority holds, the response is to revise the rules of the game.

Trump administration defended agents under fire

The Justice Department sued last November, arguing California had no power to micromanage federal immigration work. The Trump administration warned that forcing agents to display ID would expose them to harassment and attacks during enforcement actions.

The New York Post reported that federal prosecutors treated the fight as a core Supremacy Clause case. A three-judge panel agreed the state law regulated federal officers in ways the Constitution forbids. The administration framed the statute as a direct threat to agents already facing hostility in the field.

That concern did not arise in a vacuum. ICE conducted raids across California last year. Protests followed. In June 2025, President Trump deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles amid unrest tied to those operations. A federal judge later ordered the deployment ended in December. Sacramento answered with statutes aimed at how federal officers look and identify themselves on the job.

Court fights over executive authority have become a steady feature of this administration’s record, from immigration to records disputes like the Supreme Court review of DOGE records. The California ID case fits the same mold: state officials testing how far they can go before a federal bench draws the line.

Panel shuts the door on direct state control

Breitbart reported that the three-judge panel held Section 10 of the No Vigilantes Act unconstitutional as applied to federal officers. The decision reverses a lower-court approach and bars California from enforcing the ID display rule against federal agencies. Judge Mark Bennett described the measure as an attempt “to directly regulate the federal government as it performs its own functions, something a state cannot do without authorization from Congress.”

That is the heart of the case. California did not merely set local policing standards. It tried to dictate how federal immigration agents present themselves while enforcing federal law. The Ninth Circuit said no.

Related friction has not stopped. Last month Newsom signed another bill aimed at ICE after the agency awarded a nearly $17 million contract for 6,000 pairs of electric-shock gloves. He called the gear “Orwellian.” The ID and mask statutes were earlier chapters in the same campaign to constrain federal operations inside California.

Judges appointed under prior administrations have also clashed with Trump officials in other venues, including a Biden-appointed judge’s confrontation over East Potomac tree removal. The California ruling shows the opposite dynamic: a circuit panel applying the Supremacy Clause and siding with federal officers against a state power grab.

Law was built to slow deportations

Democratic lawmakers did not hide the purpose. The No Vigilantes Act and the mask ban arrived after ICE stepped up enforcement. The statutes took effect on the same January day. They required visible identification and banned masks during operations. The DOJ response was immediate once Newsom signed the ID bill.

Federal courts have now said the ID mandate cannot stand. The April extension of the pause already signaled where the circuit was headed. Wednesday’s remand with injunction instructions makes the outcome operational. California cannot enforce the visible-ID rule against ICE and other federal officers covered by the challenge.

Options left to the state are narrow. A rehearing request or a Supreme Court petition would be the usual next steps. Neither changes the panel’s core holding: without congressional authorization, a state law that directly regulates federal governmental conduct is void.

Trump has repeatedly framed Democrat process fights as attempts to hobble lawful authority, including his call for Alaska voters to scrap ranked-choice voting. The California statutes fit that larger contest over who sets the terms of enforcement.

Accountability runs both ways

Bonta’s office insists unidentified officers undermine safety. Federal prosecutors counter that naming and tagging agents in hostile environments puts them at risk and lets a state second-guess federal operations. The Ninth Circuit did not referee the politics. It applied the Constitution.

The Supremacy Clause exists for cases exactly like this one. Immigration enforcement is a federal function. California may disagree with the pace or the tactics. It may not revise the dress code and identification rules for the officers who carry out that function.

Newsom’s own words framed the project as filling a vacuum left by Washington. The court treated it as an unauthorized regulation of the United States. Those two descriptions cannot both be right under the Constitution the panel applied.

Taxpayers and lawful residents living with the consequences of illegal immigration did not revise the No Vigilantes Act. Sacramento did. When the statute collided with federal power, the statute lost.

Federal agents enforcing federal law should not need a state permission slip to do the job without a name tag dictated by Sacramento.