The Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to step in and halt a California law that would require ICE and other federal immigration officers to display either their name or a badge number when they are carrying out their duties.
A lower court judge had ruled last week that California’s No Vigilantes Act could go into effect on Feb. 19, finding that it didn’t appear to infringe on federal prerogatives.
She declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the law.
Now the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will weigh in.
Judge Snyder, in another part of her ruling, did block California’s No Secret Police Act, which had tried to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel from wearing masks as they carried out their duties.
She said she didn’t see anything wrong with the idea in theory, but said California’s law discriminated by restricting masks for the feds but not for state authorities. That discrepancy, she said, violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which guarantees the primacy of the national government.
The law governing identification does not treat state authorities differently, so she said it can take effect.
“If masking or concealing identification were as critical to federal operations as the United States asserts, the court would expect that federal agencies would not leave such decisions to the discretion of individual officers,” the judge wrote.
ICE has said that both the masking and concealing of identities are a necessity.
“I don’t want my officers masked,” acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told senators last week. “ICE agents don’t want to be masked. They’re honorable men and women, but the threats against their family are real.”
He was testifying two days after speaking at another hearing before the House. He told senators he received “numerous death threats” after that earlier appearance.
“There was a videotape of my wife walking to work that people actively posted,” he said. “The cartels have actually posted the schematics to my home.”
“ICE agents feel that every day,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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