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A Department of Justice official took a jab at a California state senator on Friday after the lawmaker, a Democrat running to succeed retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., erroneously claimed his state began enforcing a mask ban against federal immigration officers.
Jesus Osete, the No. 2 official in the DOJ Civil Rights Division, pointed out that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration agreed in court to temporarily hold off on enforcing the ban while a lawsuit over it plays out.
Osete’s remark came in response to San Francisco-based state Sen. Scott Wiener, who posted a video Thursday boasting that the ban was active.
“That’s not what @CAgovernor told a federal judge, my man,” Osete wrote on X.
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The Trump administration sued California in November, arguing that two bills, including the No Secret Police Act introduced by Wiener, violated the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which says that when federal and state laws conflict with one another, federal laws win out.
The No Secret Police Act attempted to bar ICE officers from wearing masks in certain circumstances after a series of high-profile immigration raids in the state that involved some officers fully concealing their faces with ski masks.
As part of the lawsuit, California officials agreed in December to hold off on enforcing the mask ban against ICE agents until the court could hear arguments in the case.
Wiener claimed the mask ban went into effect on Jan. 1 in a video he shared online, contradicting what California’s attorneys told the court.
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“It’s now illegal for ICE and other law enforcement to cover their faces in the state of California. Starting today, my new anti-masking law goes into effect,” Wiener said.
A federal judge is weighing whether to grant the Trump administration’s request for a preliminary injunction against the mask ban. But the briefing schedule stretches through next week, and a hearing on the matter is set for Jan. 12.
The judge could make a decision soon after the hearing, and if he were to rule in favor of California, the state could begin enforcing its ban at that point.
Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in central California, also chided Wiener for his claim that the state law was enforceable.
“This isn’t true. California has no authority to regulate federal agents. This state law violates the federal Supremacy Clause. … California has agreed to put the law on hold and not enforce its unconstitutional mask ban, which is designed to allow radical leftists to dox federal agents enforcing immigration laws,” Essayli said.
Wiener doubled down on his remarks in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying Essayli was a “clueless Trump Administration lackey” making a “meaningless royal decree.”
“While the agents of the state did agree to hold off on enforcing the law until the injunction hearing, the No Secret Police Act is still very much in effect, and ICE agents who appear masked in California are still subject to civil suits for violating the laws of our state,” Wiener said.
California attorneys have been fighting the lawsuit, arguing in court papers that “armed, masked individuals” carried out arrests of alleged illegal immigrants and, in doing so, “caused terror throughout California, with the public unsure whether they were interacting with legitimate law enforcement or impostors.”
The Trump administration’s lawsuit “ignores [the] careful balance of power between the federal and state governments, seeking to invalidate two California laws. … Each law exercises the State’s historic and long-established police power,” state attorneys wrote.
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