As legal battles threaten the viability of state laws that prevent federal immigration agents from covering their faces, Oregon lawmakers on Tuesday took a major step toward entering the fray themselves.

Members of the House Committee on Judiciary heard testimony Tuesday from civil liberty and immigrant rights advocates about a new bill: the Law Enforcement Accountability and Visibility Act, introduced by Rep. Farrah Chaichi, D-Beaverton. Lawmakers in states including Michigan, New York, Washington, Tennessee, Illinois and Massachusetts are weighing similar pieces of legislation, and Portland’s city leaders are also considering a facial covering ban for law enforcement.

“There’s a question whether you can tell the feds what to do, but we want anyone practicing law enforcement in the state of Oregon to abide by these rules,” Chaichi told her colleagues. “And if the feds don’t abide by these rules, at the very least, we know our locals are not the masked people you see outside.”

The legislation would empower individuals to sue public agencies for damages, attorney fees or a court order when the law is violated, creating “non-criminal” tools for local and state law enforcement to investigate individuals wearing masks when they have enough cause to suspect someone is impersonating a law enforcement officer, according to a Tuesday memo. The bill would come with a 90-day implementation phase, allow for medical or undercover operation exemptions and require every law enforcement agency operating in the state to have a public policy regarding facial coverings that “generally prohibits masking.”

Tackling federal agent masking was a key priority of House Democratic legislative leadership, but it remains to be seen whether such a bill would survive legal challenges citing the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause. The section allows for federal laws to supersede conflicting state ones and provides a significant level of criminal immunity for federal officers based on a landmark 1890 U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Supporters of such masking laws, however, say that face coverings stymie efforts at accountability when individuals impersonate agents and ultimately result in fewer people, including crime victims, cooperating with any law enforcement agency.

Chaichi’s proposed legislation comes after two Oregon state lawmakers last August announced they would introduce a constitutional amendment that requires voter approval aimed at stopping what they called “secret police.” That would likely require a resource-intensive push to get the ballot measure over the finish line, while the Trump administration has already begun to fight similar measures across the country in federal court.

A staffer for Rep. Tom Andersen, D-Salem, told the Capital Chronicle on Tuesday that his constitutional ballot legislation is close to being finalized, but that the representative supports Chaichi’s bill as well. Andersen and Rep. Cyrus Javadi, D-Tillamook, announced their legislation after masked federal agents in Beaverton apprehended a father last July outside his child’s preschool, part of a shift by the federal government which historically held off immigration enforcement in areas such as hospitals, houses of worship and schools.

An unnamed spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department previously told the Capital Chronicle in a statement responding to the duo’s bill that such pieces of legislation stoke dangerous rhetoric against Immigration and Customs Enforcement “for cheap points and fundraising emails.”

“When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13, criminal rings, murderers, and rapists,” the spokesperson added.

Legal battles loom

In California, meanwhile, lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom passed the nation’s first anti-masking law applicable to federal law enforcement agents, creating a criminal and civil penalty process for alleged violations. Lawyers for the federal government eventually sued the state in November, seeking to halt implementation of the law on the grounds that it unlawfully interferes with federal agents’ duties and prevents them from avoiding being targeted or doxed for their work.

Federal attorneys in their lawsuit also challenged a California law requiring agents to wear visible identification. A judge is set to hear arguments Wednesday for a preliminary order blocking California’s anti-masking law, which was supposed to take effect at the start of the year. California’s attorneys have agreed to pause the law’s enforcement against federal agents until the judge makes a ruling, court records show, but legal experts have expressed doubt that the masking laws will survive in court.

On Tuesday, lawmakers heard from Portland Police Chief Bob Day, who emphasized his support for the agency’s policy preventing it from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement activities. He said that growing confusion prompted by the federal government’s increased presence could affect his own agency’s ability to retain trust. The bureau’s identification policy already requires members to identify themselves by name when responding to a call for service and display their badges and name tags on their outermost garment.

“Anytime we bucket all of law enforcement into the same area and the same critique, I think that’s a risk. You have really excellent law enforcement within the state and a lot of really good work being done,” Day said, “but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t certainly look at the importance of identification.”

Michael Abrams, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Oregon chapter, told lawmakers that while the issue exists in a legal “gray area,” he was more confident in Oregon’s law compared to California because it applies across the board to state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. California’s law exempts state law enforcement.

More sanctuary standing

The new legislation from Chaichi also contains several provisions to boost Oregon’s sanctuary laws, which have for decades served as some of the strongest in the nation by blocking state and local law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration enforcement activities without a court order. Chaichi’s bill memo also calls for prohibiting Oregon state and local employees from cooperating “with federal or another state’s crackdowns on free speech or targeting of protected classes.”

Alongside that provision is another part of the measure which would make public any terms of agreements between local law enforcement in federal joint task forces tackling crime. The bill would prohibit a state or local agency or officer from surveilling or investigating an individual “based on First Amendment activities or protected classes.” It would also outlaw using confidential informants for investigations based on membership in a protected class under state anti-discrimination laws.

The new masking legislation is one of several bills lawmakers hope to pass in response to the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive deportation crackdown, which prompted at least 1,100 arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Oregon last year. That’s according to immigration advocates and the Deportation Data Project, a public records database from university researchers which has tracked federal detention data from Jan. 1, 2025 to Oct. 15, 2025.

While ICE has claimed its crackdowns are catching criminals, recently available data shows that only 32% of people arrested in 2025 had criminal convictions. That’s down from 45% of the people ICE arrested in Oregon in 2024, according to the project.

Several Oregon Democrats on Wednesday morning are expected to unveil additional legislation involving immigration issues, such as sensitive data privacy for immigrants, restrictions for state contracts with businesses that support ICE operations and additional resources for immigrants using the legal system. Another bill allowing individuals to sue federal agents in civil court is also set to be considered in the upcoming session.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Shumway for questions: [email protected]. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Bluesky.

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/14/oregon-lawmakers-consider-disputed-penalites-federal-agents-masking/