Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey signed legislation on Wednesday to prohibit on-duty law enforcement officers, including immigration agents, from wearing masks. Federal officials have already said they will ignore the rules, which is likely to lead to a court challenge.
The initiative is part of a package of bills the Democratic governor enacted on Wednesday to protect migrant rights in New Jersey, which has the country’s second-largest percentage of immigrants after California.
Ms. Sherrill campaigned on a promise to blunt what she has called the chaos of President Trump’s second term. The mask ban comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have increased the pace of arrests throughout New Jersey and as backlash against the president’s deportation policies intensifies.
“I can’t believe we have to say this, but in the United States of America, we’re not going to tolerate masked, roving militias pretending to be well-trained law enforcement agents,” Ms. Sherrill said during a bill-signing ceremony in Newark.
A similar mask ban was signed into law last week in Washington State, and Democrats have introduced bills in 17 other states that would prohibit the police from wearing masks, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most of the legislation includes exceptions for fire or water rescues, or to prevent the spread of disease; in Tennessee, the bill is named the “Stop American Gestapo Act.”
Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said that federal agents would not stop wearing masks. “To be crystal clear: We will not abide by this unconstitutional ban,” she said in an email after the State Legislature passed the bill on Monday.
Ms. Bis cited a doctrine known as the supremacy clause, which prohibits state officials from prosecuting federal officers when they are reasonably acting in their official capacity. “New Jersey’s sanctuary politicians do not control federal law enforcement,” Ms. Bis added.
Soon after being sworn in as governor two months ago, Ms. Sherrill set up an online portal and encouraged residents to upload videos of arrests by federal agents, most of whom now wear military-style neck gaiters over their faces.
Homeland Security officials have said that agents must shield their identity to safeguard themselves and their families from online harassment and assaults, which they say have increased drastically during Mr. Trump’s second term.
California last year became the first state in the country to bar federal and local police officers from wearing face coverings. Last month, a federal judge struck down that law, but suggested that a ban that also included state police officers would be constitutional.
In New York, Senator Patricia Fahy, a Democrat who represents parts of three upstate counties, said she was optimistic that the legislation she introduced to prohibit all police officers from wearing masks would eventually pass. In an era when states are spending millions of dollars to equip police officers with body-worn cameras, it is only logical for lawmakers to also prohibit them from shielding their identities while doing their jobs, she said.
“You don’t need to be a lawyer to know how fundamentally wrong it is to have masked armed agents abducting people,” Ms. Fahy said.
Mr. Trump recently began deploying ICE agents to airports throughout the country, including in New Jersey and New York, where a partial government shutdown that began after a sharp political disagreement over immigration enforcement has led to long lines for security screening. Those officers, the president has said, should not wear masks.
That distinction illustrates the fundamental flaw in the mask-wearing practice, said Jay Stanley, a policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in speech and privacy issues.
“Wearing uniforms and carrying identification broadcasts discipline and professionalism and at least the promise of adherence to the rule of law,” Mr. Stanley said.
Mr. Trump’s request that agents sent to airports should not wear masks is “an implicit recognition by the president that wearing the mask sends a message that is the opposite of discipline to the rule of law,” he added.
The two other bills Ms. Sherrill signed on Wednesday also relate to migrant rights. Both were versions of legislation that the State Legislature first passed in January, but were vetoed by the former governor, Philip D. Murphy, on his last day in office.
One measure converts a longstanding state directive that limits the amount of voluntary assistance local officers can give federal immigration agents into a law. The other aims to curb the amount of personal data held by health care facilities and government agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles. Undocumented immigrants have been able to obtain driver’s licenses in New Jersey since 2019, leaving details about their personal lives vulnerable to scrutiny by federal immigration authorities.
“In the past two months, we’ve watched poorly trained, masked ICE agents put communities across the country in danger,” Ms. Sherrill said before signing the bills. “In this state, we have drawn a line.”
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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