"No set of circumstances exist under which the Act would be valid." That's not a quote from a Trump-appointed district court judge in Texas. That's the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — the same court that spent years trying to block everything the Trump administration touched — describing Gavin Newsom's attempt to hamstring ICE operations in California.
Unanimously.
The October 14 ruling dismantled Section 10 of California's "No Vigilantes Act," which required ICE agents operating in the state to display visible identification including their name, badge number, and agency at all times. The law was Newsom's latest attempt to use Sacramento as a shield between illegal aliens and federal immigration enforcement. A three-judge panel, with the opinion written by Judge Mark Bennett, found the law violated the Supremacy Clause and the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity — meaning states can't regulate how the federal government carries out its own operations without congressional approval.
The federal government's case was so airtight that Judge Bennett wrote the challenge was "certain to succeed." Not "has merit." Not "raises serious questions." Certain to succeed. That's judicial language for "you never had a chance and you knew it."
Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, called it a "huge win for the Supremacy Clause," adding that "California continues to violate the U.S. Constitution." Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. was also involved in pressing the federal case against Sacramento's obstruction campaign.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta defended the law. His office has been the legal muscle behind Newsom's sanctuary-state architecture for years, filing challenge after challenge against federal immigration authority. The Ninth Circuit's response was to rule that every possible application of the statute was unconstitutional. Not some applications. Not under certain conditions. Every single one.
The ruling sends a pointed message beyond California's borders. Governors like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, JB Pritzker in Illinois, Kathy Hochul in New York, and Tim Walz in Minnesota have all pursued their own versions of state-level ICE obstruction. The legal theory they were relying on — that states can dictate the terms under which federal agents operate inside their borders — just got demolished by the one court they assumed would protect it.
That's the part that matters most. This wasn't the Fifth Circuit handing down a ruling that Sacramento could dismiss as partisan. This was the Ninth Circuit, built over decades by Democratic presidents including Joe Biden, telling a Democratic governor that the Constitution still applies to him.
Newsom built the "No Vigilantes Act" as a political statement — a signal to his base that California would resist federal immigration enforcement at every level. The three-judge panel treated it as what it was: a state law that attempted to override federal authority.
No set of circumstances. Unanimous. The Ninth Circuit.