A federal judge strikes down New York State’s law that bars ICE agents from wearing masks in public.
The federal judge in Northern District of NY partially granted the preliminary injunction by noting the state’s “face covering and identification acts directly regulate federal officers in violation of the Supremacy Clause.”
“Settled law establishes that federal, not state, authorities make the policies that animate the enforcement of federal immigration laws,” Judge Mae D’Agostino ruled.
Additionally, the judge also denied blocking New York’s separate law banning local immigration enforcement agreements.
The federal judge further wrote that New York officials “may be correct that federal immigration officers wearing masks and not displaying viable identification creates certain dangerous situations that the face covering and identification acts remedy.”
But she added that “settled law establishes that federal, not state, authorities make the policies that animate the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
The Trump administration had already won a similar case in California after a judge ruled it unfairly targeted federal officials.
The ruling arrives just weeks before NY State’s ban on formal collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration agents goes into effect on August 25.
2026-08-04 11:40:00
