Federal agents, including those conducting immigration enforcement operations, will not comply with California’s mask ban for on-duty law enforcement officers when it goes into effect in January, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
Essayli, who was appointed to the position for the Central District of California by President Trump earlier this year, told CBS News Los Angeles’ Jeff Nguyen on Monday that he has instructed agents to ignore the law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday.
“We’re not going to follow it,” Essayli said. “The law has no force or effect on federal agencies. The State of California has no jurisdiction to regulate anything that we do in the federal government and I’ve instructed our agents to disregard it.”
During Saturday’s signing, Newsom said that law enforcement, especially agencies conducting immigration operations like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, should identify themselves while detaining people in California.
“To ICE, [which is] unmasked. What are you afraid of,” Newsom said on Saturday. “You’re gonna do enforcement? Provide an ID.”
Newsom described ICE and CBP agents as “secret police” roaming the streets in unmarked vehicles and with face coverings, comparing the situation to a “dystopian Sci-Fi movie.”
The new law comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can continue immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, allowing officers to question and detain people based on their skin color, accents and languages spoken.
While the law was written to include officers from both federal and local agencies, officers with the California Highway Patrol are exempt, Essayli claimed, while noting that the CHP is the police force that protects the governor.
CBS News Los Angeles reached out to the office of Sen. Scott Wiener, who is the main author of the bill, to clarify why the CHP was exempt, but had not heard back as of Monday afternoon.
On Monday, Essayli justified the need for face coverings by claiming that federal law enforcement agents have faced a 1000% increase in assaults over the last year.
“The reason our agents wear face masks is because you have radical people, left-wing extremists who are trying to dox and intimidate and harass and follow and stalk our agents from doing their job, which is immigration enforcement,” he said.
Approximately 80 people have been arrested on suspicion of interfering with or assaulting immigration enforcement officers in recent months, Essayli claimed.
In a statement on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security criticized the law, claiming that it “demonizes” law enforcement.
“The [DHS] vehemently condemns California Governor Gavin Newsom for signing the ‘No Secret Police Act,’ which further demonizes law enforcement and attempts to ban law enforcement from being able to protect their identities to keep them from being targeted by cartels, criminal rings, terrorists, and doxxed online,” the statement reads.
Newsom’s “bad day” social media post
Essayli said he referred a recent social media post from Gov. Newsom’s Press Office to the U.S. Secret Service to investigate its intent and whether the post incited anyone to consider violence against a member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet.
The post, made before the bill signing on Saturday, reads, “[Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today. You’re welcome, America.”
Essayli said that the post was “reckless” and put “fuel on the fire,” as it was made the day before a public memorial for assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“I was shocked when I saw that post,” Essayli said. “You have to consider the climate we’re in … I think they knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote that post.”
It’s not yet clear who in Newsom’s office wrote the post, and there’s no evidence that it was intended as a threat. Upon a request for comment on Essayli’s statements, Newsom’s office directed CBS News Los Angeles to a post made on Saturday, which contained a screenshot of a 2020 post from President Trump saying, “Going to be a BAD day for Crazy Bernie [Sanders]!”
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