By Juan Benn Jr.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) took additional steps this week to put limits on federal immigration enforcement, issuing an executive order that bars U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from carrying out arrests on state property unless they have a warrant.

Her executive order also prohibits ICE agents from using state property as a staging area for enforcement operations.

“Kids in elementary school are afraid to get on the bus, neighbors fear being targeted based on their appearance at the grocery store, and workers are not showing up at their jobs,” Spanberger said in a news release Wednesday announcing the order. “Public trust in state and local law enforcement is being undermined by the aggressive tactics used by federal immigration officials.”

The order and a bill signed by Spanberger this week that prohibits law enforcement officers from wearing masks in most situations are part of efforts by state officials around the country to temper the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement effort.

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Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of Prosecutors Alliance Action, a nonprofit group seeking judicial reforms, said the actions taken by states in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement actions are encouraging.

While states cannot completely block the federal government from enforcing immigration law, she said, they can force ICE agents to operate “in concordance with the way we police and regulate our state.”

Barring law enforcement officers from wearing masks — with exceptions for those who are assigned to special units or protecting themselves from disease — is an important accountability tool, she said.

“If your rights are violated, you have to be able to identify the individual officers that violated your rights,” Soto DeBerry said. “And when they are unidentified and wearing a mask … it is nearly impossible for the individual, for the witnesses, and even for the prosecutors like ourselves to show up after the fact and try to identify who is accountable for what actions.”

Masking creates, she said, a “back door” to absolute immunity for federal agents.

Soto DeBerry, who helped write a mask-banning bill in California that has served as a template for other states, said a “new era” is underway, with little legal precedent. The Trump administration and other groups have mounted challenges against such state laws in federal courts.

For much of the country’s history, Soto DeBerry said, the federal government protected U.S. citizens from state violations of their rights.

“That has been flipped on its head, and it is the states trying to protect their residents from federal efforts to restrict or eliminate their civil and constitutional rights,” Soto DeBerry said.