WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., and 38 members of Congress urged 19 Democratic governors to block U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from accessing driver license and registration information of people living in their states, in response to President Donald Trump politicizing and weaponizing the agency.
Every state, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories provide access to their residents’ data to approximately 18,000 federal, state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies across the United States and Canada. This data is made available through a non-profit called Nlets — the International Justice & Public Safety Network (“Nlets”). Each state can decide what data it makes available to federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies, and to which agencies it chooses to make data available.
In the year prior to Oct. 1, 2025, Nlets facilitated more than 290 million queries for Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) data, 292,114 of which were from ICE and 605,116 were from Homeland Security Investigations, a law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security, according to Nlets. These statistics represent federal and out-of-state requests for data because law enforcement agencies do not generally access DMV data about residents of their own states through Nlets.
“This commonsense step will improve public safety and guard against Trump officials using your state’s data for unjustified, politicized actions, while still allowing continued collaboration on serious crimes,” the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers wrote that “implementing blocks for other federal agencies whose agents now work on immigration enforcement” would not undermine investigative work into serious crimes, because states could still choose to share data on a case-by-case basis after reviewing data requests.
Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York had blocked ICE access as of early November, while Washington state blocked access after engaging with the letter's authors. Oregon is working on a process for blocking ICE access.
Although several states have enacted laws and policies to prevent drivers license data from being accessed by ICE without a court order, ICE continues to have warrantless, self-service access to driver databases in all but five states.
“It is now abundantly clear that a major reason that so few states have locked down the data they share through Nlets is because of an information gap. Because of the technical complexity of Nlets’ system, few state government officials understand how their state is sharing their residents’ data with federal and out-of-state agencies,” the lawmakers continued.
Joining Wyden, the letter is cosigned by Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Representatives Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Lateefah Simon, D-Calif., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., Jared Huffman, D-Calif., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas., Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., Eleanor Norton, D-D.C., Darren Soto, D-Fla., Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., Greg Casar, D-Texas., Raul Ruiz, D-N.Y., Maxwell Alejandro Frost, D-Fla., Nanette Barragán, D-Calif., Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Summer Lee, D-Pa., Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, Madeline Dean, D-Pa., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Luz Rivas, D-Calif., Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., Pablo Jose Hernandez, D-Puerto Rico.
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