The Justice Department sued Maryland on Thursday, the same day a state law took effect restricting face coverings for law enforcement officers who work in the state, federal agents among them, and requiring officers to wear identification on duty.
Besides the state, the complaint names Attorney General Anthony G. Brown, the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission, and Prince George's and Montgomery counties. It challenges provisions of both counties' codes along with the state statute.
The department's case rests on the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. "Under the U.S. Constitution, the Supremacy Clause provides that states and localities do not have the authority to regulate the Federal Government," Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said. The department also contends that the laws put federal officers in danger, alleging in its complaint that those officers have faced a wave of harassment, doxing and even violence.
"The Federal Government, not state and local governments, gets to decide which equipment federal officers may or may not wear when performing their official duties," said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Civil Division. Woodward added that the department would "never tolerate the doxxing or harassment of federal officers, or any law like those in Maryland that enables violent behavior against federal law enforcement officers and their families."
The suit is the latest, the department said, in a series of Civil Division lawsuits against state and local policies it says are designed to thwart federal law enforcement, a list that includes suits involving New York, Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. The attorney general has directed the division to identify state and local laws that facilitate violations of federal law or impede lawful federal operations.
Maryland's statute, enacted as Chapter 612 of the 2026 session, directs the police training commission to write a single policy against face coverings on duty for every law enforcement agency in the state, and it requires officers to wear identification while working in Maryland. The identification must be worn on an officer's outermost clothing and given verbally on request, subject to exceptions in the law, while the face-covering limits make room for certain protective equipment, religious garments and other circumstances. An officer who violates the law can be fined up to $1,500.
Lawmakers gave the bill final approval in April, 100 to 37 in the House and 32 to 13 in the Senate, and Gov. Wes Moore signed it on May 26. "We know that trust matters when it comes to law enforcement and the people that they serve," said Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat.
Supporters in the legislature were confident the law would hold up in court because it covers every officer, not only federal agents. A federal judge in February had blocked a similar California law because its prohibition applied to federal agents but not to state officers. Republican lawmakers countered that the Maryland version violates the Supremacy Clause.
Brown's office had flagged the same issue. In a review of the legislation, it said the law was not clearly unconstitutional but warned that applying it to federal law enforcement carries "significant constitutional risk" under the Supremacy Clause.
Both county councils wrote rules of their own this spring. The Prince George's County Council unanimously approved a package of emergency laws in April that, among other things, bars immigration officers from wearing masks in most situations. Later that month the Montgomery County Council unanimously passed the Unmask ICE Act, which prohibits federal, state and local officers from wearing masks or facial coverings on duty in the county, with limited exceptions, requires identification and calls for an online portal for reporting alleged violations. The county measure is set to expire once the statewide policy is in place.