The Ninth Circuit has directed a lower court to preliminarily block California’s “No Vigilantes Act,” concluding the federal government is likely to succeed on its claim that the state law impermissibly regulates federal officers. The ruling is an important early win for the United States in a closely watched dispute over the limits of state power when legislating around federal immigration enforcement.

The statute would have required federal agents to display visible identification while carrying out their duties.

The family of Renee Good has filed suit in Minnesota against the United States and federal immigration officials over her death during a January enforcement action in Minneapolis tied to “Operation Metro Surge.” The case is notable not only because it challenges the conduct of officers involved in a fatal operation, but because the complaint reportedly frames the shooting as the foreseeable result of broader immigration-enforcement planning and policy—not merely a split-second field decision.

That framing could make this litigation especially important for lawyers tracking civil-rights claims against federal actors.

A federal judge on July 2 temporarily blocked Philadelphia from enforcing a city measure aimed at federal immigration operations, preventing the city from requiring federal officers to go unmasked, display visible identification, and use marked vehicles during enforcement activity. The ruling is an early but important development in a fast-evolving conflict between local efforts to regulate immigration tactics and the federal government’s claim to operational control over its officers.

At the center of the dispute is a familiar constitutional fault line: whether a municipality can impose rules that affect how federal officers carry out federal law.

Federal prosecutors have escalated a New Mexico criminal case by filing a superseding indictment charging Wilfrido Saenz, Ignacio Jaramillo, and Ismael Jaramillo with conspiracy to transport noncitizens and conspiracy to kill a witness. The new charges significantly raise the stakes, transforming what might otherwise have been viewed as an immigration-related smuggling prosecution into a case centered on alleged obstruction of justice and witness silencing.

According to the Justice Department’s announcement, the superseding indictment alleges that the defendants not only participated in transporting noncitizens, but also conspired to murder a witness tied to the underlying smuggling matter.