The federal government is suing the state of Maryland over a new law that bans law enforcement officers from wearing masks, one of several measures in the state aimed at reining in federal immigration enforcement.
The lawsuit from President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, filed Thursday, also challenges mask bans in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.
The feds argue that the laws improperly regulate how federal law enforcement officers carry out their jobs.
The state law, which took effect Thursday, bans law enforcement from wearing facial coverings and requires officers to provide identification when working in Maryland.
The law aims to address concerns that federal law enforcement officers — particularly those enforcing immigration laws — are shielding their faces and identities as they take people into custody.
Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed the bill into law in May.
Rhyan Lake, a spokesperson for Moore, said in a statement that the governor wouldn’t comment on litigation, “but Governor Moore has been clear that an untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable ICE is unacceptable.”
The bill was designated as Senate Bill 1, indicative of its importance to Democratic leaders in Annapolis.
“Marylanders have a right to know when someone exercising the extraordinary authority of law enforcement is acting under the color of law,” House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, a Prince George’s County Democrat, said, calling the law’s provisions “reasonable standards for transparency and accountability.”
Maryland is one of eight states being sued over similar laws, according to the DOJ’s website, including California, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.
Some cautioned that the state could be setting itself up for a lawsuit as the bill wound through Annapolis.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown advised in a letter to Moore that while the measure was “not clearly unconstitutional,” the fact that it covered federal officers posed “significant” risk of being challenged under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, which gives precedence to the federal government when state and federal laws conflict.
Given the possibility of a legal challenge, Peña-Melnyk said the law was crafted in a “thoughtful” manner.
Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, also stressed the “careful” crafting of the law in a statement.
“Nothing else matters if people don’t feel safe in their communities,” Ferguson said. “Central to that safety is the trust and credibility between law enforcement and the people they serve.”
Sen. Malcolm Augustine, a Prince George’s County Democrat who was the bill’s chief sponsor, expressed confidence the law will be upheld.
“We believe that Senate Bill 1 does not impede law enforcement’s ability to enforce the law — and is constitutional,” he said.
The Prince George’s County law went into effect in late April, and the Montgomery County law went into effect in May.
“Such state and local attempts to regulate the Federal Government under functionally identical laws in other jurisdictions (facial covering prohibitions and identification requirements) have been repeatedly rejected as unconstitutional overreach under the Supremacy Clause,” U.S. Department of Justice lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
This story will be updated.
Banner reporters Brenda Wintrode and Justin Fenton contributed to this story.
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