ICE agent with face covered [AP=Yonhap News]

California's state government has been blocked from enforcing a law that would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to wear identification badges, a measure pushed in response to aggressive crackdowns by the agency.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on the 22nd (local time) that the California law mandating ICE agents to wear badges or identifiable markings while on duty is unconstitutional.

The court accepted the Department of Justice's argument that the state law violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by directly attempting to regulate federal government operations.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that state laws cannot take precedence over treaties already made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, and over federal laws.

Judge Jacqueline Nguyen stated, "California has done something unprecedented. [The law requiring identification badges] dictates how federal agents should dress."

The California state government passed the law requiring federal agents to wear identification badges last year in opposition to the broad immigration enforcement policies of the Donald Trump administration.

In addition, they also introduced a ban on face coverings for federal agents while on duty.

This was due to concerns that ICE agents were instilling fear in communities by enforcing immigration laws while concealing their faces and identities.

The Trump administration strongly opposed this, leading to a legal battle.

In February, a lower court ruled that California's ban on federal agents wearing face coverings, often called the "secret police ban," was unconstitutional.

While the court at that time ruled the law requiring identification badges was not unconstitutional, this was overturned by the federal appeals court, the second instance of the case, on this day.

This is expected to influence efforts in other states to introduce similar bans on face coverings.

Currently, about 10 states in the U.S. are considering measures to ban ICE agents from wearing face coverings.