By Dave Mason
The Center Square

California Democratic officials are accusing masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers of being a “secret police” force spreading terror in immigrant communities.

But the Republican leader in the state Assembly denies there’s any secret police and says ICE officers are simply enforcing immigration laws, something they have done under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The criticism of ICE is continuing after Democratic supermajorities in the California Senate and Assembly passed Senate Bill 627, also known as the No Secret Police Act. It bans the wearing of masks by ICE agents, with some exemptions including Special Weapons And Tactics operations and undercover work. The bill makes violations a misdemeanor.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 627 Saturday at a press conference at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, a Los Angeles high school, and the law is scheduled to take effect in January.

The bill’s author, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said the law is necessary to protect Californians from the Trump administration.

“As this authoritarian regime seeks to demolish our constitutional rights and engages in a straight up terror campaign, California is meeting the Trump administration’s secret police tactics with strength and defiance,” Wiener said in a news release.

Newsom, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, went on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Tuesday and accused ICE of swearing an oath to President Donald Trump instead of the U.S. Constitution.

“Donald Trump’s secret police are terrorizing hardworking Californians — but Democrats are fighting back to keep our communities safe from Trump’s heartless and illegal ICE raids,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, said in a statement. “Secret police are un-American. These new laws make it clear: Show some ID, masks off. We will fight as long as it takes to protect California.”

The Center Square requested an interview with Rivas, but his office said the speaker wasn’t available.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said this week it would not comply with the no-masks law, and the ban could end up in court if the state tries to enforce it.

Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher, R-Nicolaus, who predicts courts would rule against the law, called Rivas’ statement “ridiculous.”

“There is no secret police in California,” Gallagher told The Center Square this week. “There are ICE officers, Homeland Security officers, federal officers who are doing their job, a fundamental job, to enforce immigration laws. At times, they are wearing masks.

“They’re wearing masks so they don’t get doxxed, so they don’t have violence against them or their families, which has increased a thousand percent since the beginning of this year,” Gallagher said, citing statistics from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “That’s a real threat.”

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said her department has seen “thugs launch websites to reveal officers’ identity.”

“This whole concept of there being Gestapo secret police is a false narrative, driven by Gavin Newsom and radical Democrats,” Gallagher said. “It does nothing to soften the inflammatory times that we’re in. It just makes it worse.”

“It’s all about trying to paint Donald Trump and immigration officers as some sort of Stormtroopers force, which is extremely dangerous in the times we are living,” Gallagher said.

The Assembly minority leader warned the Democrats’ rhetoric endangers officers. He pointed to the rioters attacking law enforcement during the June protests in Los Angeles following ICE arrests.

Large-scale ICE raids wouldn’t be necessary if California didn’t have sanctuary state and sanctuary city laws that prevent local law enforcement from working with ICE on precise arrests, state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, told The Center Square.

Gallagher said he agreed with that and noted several million illegal immigrants were deported during the Obama and Biden administrations. He asked where the outrage was from Democrats over that.