A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked California from forcing plainclothes federal immigration agents to display badges and identification during enforcement work, handing the Trump administration a clear win under the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
Fox News Digital reported the court found the administration was “certain to succeed” in its lawsuit and temporarily barred enforcement of the identification section of the state’s No Vigilantes Act. The ruling strikes at a core state effort to police how federal officers operate inside California.
At stake is a basic separation-of-powers fight. California tried to implement rules for federal agents. The appeals court said a state may not do that.
The panel granted a preliminary injunction against Section 10 of the No Vigilantes Act, the provision that required non-uniformed officers, including federal immigration agents, to show visible agency identification and a name or badge number. Just The News reported the Ninth Circuit sided with the Trump administration, reversed a lower court’s refusal to issue an injunction, and remanded with instructions to block the law.
The decision read that the United States had shown the public interest and the balance of the equities tip “decisively in... favor” of a preliminary injunction because Section 10 violates the Supremacy Clause.
U.S. Circuit Judge Mark Bennett, writing for the panel, drove the legal point home in plain terms. The Washington Examiner reported the panel’s conclusion that the United States is likely to succeed on the merits of its Supremacy Clause claim.
"As before, we conclude that the United States is likely to succeed on the merits of its Supremacy Clause claim because... [the] No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions, and Congress has not authorized such regulation."
The New York Post carried additional language from Bennett’s opinion stressing the breadth of that holding.
"As before, we conclude... the No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions. No set of circumstances exist under which the Act would be valid."
Fox News Digital quoted the panel on the core defect in Section 10.
"Section 10 explicitly overrides the federal government’s power to determine whether, how, and when to publicly identify its officers,"
The court also rejected California’s preferred test. State lawyers argued a requirement becomes an unconstitutional regulation only when it “impose[s] substantial burdens on federal operations.” The appeals court answered that the burden on federal operations, “whether substantial or otherwise, is irrelevant.” The state, the panel said, never had authority to regulate federal officials directly.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of laws aimed at protecting immigrant communities, restricting federal immigration enforcement, and increasing oversight of federal agents. Those measures included the No Vigilantes Act identification rule and the related No Secret Police Act limits on masks and face coverings for officers.
The Trump administration sued California in November 2025 over both sets of provisions. U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, a Clinton appointee, initially blocked the No Secret Police Act mask restriction for federal officers but declined to block the No Vigilantes Act identification requirement. The Ninth Circuit later stepped in. It temporarily blocked enforcement of the identification requirement in February and granted an injunction pending appeal in April before the latest ruling reinforced the freeze.
Breitbart reported the three-judge panel included Judges Bennett, Nguyen, and Collins, and that the law had attached misdemeanor penalties for noncompliance by non-uniformed officers who failed to display the required identifiers.
The Justice Department’s challenge named California, Newsom, and Attorney General Rob Bonta as defendants and treated the statutes as part of a wider state response to federal immigration operations. The Washington Examiner noted the preliminary injunction keeps the identification requirement unenforceable while the broader lawsuit continues.
Justice Department officials cast the decision as both a constitutional ruling and an officer-safety win. Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, wrote on X that the Ninth Circuit agrees California cannot regulate federal law enforcement.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, Jr. went further in posts on X.
"Today, the Ninth Circuit again affirms what common sense makes clear: California cannot regulate how Federal law enforcement officers carry out their jobs authorized by Congress,"
Woodward also called the decision a huge win for protecting the safety of the nation’s law enforcement officers and for enforcing the country’s immigration laws.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli framed the stakes around constitutional structure, saying it was a huge win for the Supremacy Clause and that California continues to violate the U.S. Constitution while federal officials will continue to hold the state accountable.
A spokesperson for Newsom’s office rejected the federal framing and tied the laws to community safety. The spokesperson said California is proud to fight for the safety of its communities against the federal government’s “campaign of terror and weaponized incompetence,” and added that “their tactics continue to harm our families every day.”
That language does not change the legal posture. The panel did not weigh political slogans. It asked whether a state statute may dictate identification rules for federal officers carrying out duties authorized by Congress. The answer was no.
The Supremacy Clause makes valid federal law supreme over conflicting state law. In this case, the court treated officer identification during federal operations as a federal governmental function. Absent congressional permission, California cannot revise that function through a state criminal or regulatory mandate.
California’s “substantial burden” theory would have given states a wider lane to test federal operations case by case. The Ninth Circuit closed that lane. If the state is regulating federal officers directly, the burden analysis does not save the statute.
The practical effect is immediate for ICE, Border Patrol, and other plainclothes federal agents working enforcement actions in California. State officials cannot enforce the Section 10 display rule against them under the injunction described in the coverage. Investigators and litigants still have a live case on the broader package of state restrictions, including the related mask rules already handled in part at the district court level.
Fox News Digital noted the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration over immigration policy in prior years, including fights over a travel ban and sanctuary-city funding conditions. Those earlier disputes supply political context. They do not revise the holding here. On the identification mandate, the panel aligned with the Justice Department and against Sacramento’s attempt to set operating rules for federal agents.
Scene-setting coverage has also shown the street-level tension the laws were written to address, including confrontations between residents and federal agents in places such as Atlantic Boulevard in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell. The court did not treat local anger as a grant of state power over federal officers.
Authorities have not publicly settled every downstream question in the materials provided. The full duration and outer edges of compliance disputes can still surface as the injunction operates. California may explore further appellate options, including rehearing or Supreme Court review, as later coverage has flagged. The district court must carry out the remand instructions to keep Section 10 blocked as to federal officers.
What the panel did resolve is the central legal claim for preliminary relief. A state statute that tries to run federal law enforcement identification policy fails under the Supremacy Clause. Congress, not Sacramento, controls that field unless Congress says otherwise.
When states try to freelance the rules for federal officers, the Constitution still has the last word.
