CA Passes Nation's First Law Allowing People To Sue ICE Officers And A Ban On Agent Face Coverings

Two bills passed the state legislature this week check the powers of federal immigration authorities.

Senate Bill 1004 will allow the state to enforce a ban on facial coverings for federal immigration officers, and Senate Bill 747 gives Californians the right to sue federal immigration officers for violations of their constitutional rights.

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SB 1004, or the No Secret Police Act, is authored by state Sens. Aisha Wahab, D-Fremont, Jesse Arreguin, D-Oakland, Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Sasha Perez, D-Pasadena.
The legislation was born out of Senate Bill 627, which was introduced and passed through the Legislature in 2025, and was set to go into effect at the beginning of this year. However, the federal government challenged the law, arguing that California does not have the power to regulate federal officials doing their job.

In February, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder issued a preliminary injunction against SB 627, saying it discriminated between federal and state officers. Since the legislation did not impose the same no-masking requirements on all state officers, she blocked its enforcement.

Within hours of the ruling, the four authors of SB 627 introduced SB 1004, which applied the no-mask rule to all law enforcement officers in the state, including those employed by state agencies.

Now, the bill has cleared the Legislature and, if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs it into law, it will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.
Wahab and Wiener are also the main authors of SB 747, called the No Kings Act.

If it becomes law, this bill will allow individual plaintiffs to bring a lawsuit for monetary damages against federal, state, and local officers who violate their constitutional rights.
A news release from Wiener's office issued this week said that this is the first such law in the country that holds U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers liable for their actions.

"Californians have watched in horror as ICE tore people like Marvin Godoy Calderon and Iryna Gorb from their homes and shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight," said Wiener in a news release.

Calderon is a San Francisco resident who was attacked in May by ICE officers outside his home despite having a valid work permit, according to the news release.

In July, Gorb, a Ukrainian immigrant, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport by ICE officers, who alleged that she had overstayed her visa.

Pretti and Good were both shot and killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis in January.

"The only way to end ICE's violent, lawless behavior is accountability. Today, the California Legislature stood up to hold them accountable," Wiener added.

By Tanay Gokhale, Bay City News
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