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5h ago

Democrats Urge 19 Governors to Cut Off ICE’s Access to State DMV Data

The push targets a little-known police network that gives federal agents frictionless access to state driver records at a scale most governors have not been briefed on.

Commuters arrive at Holland Tunnel to drive into New York from Jersey City, New Jersey November 7, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Governor of California Gavin Newsom attends a press conference during the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Belem, Para State, Brazil on November 11, 2025. Brazil is betting its much-hyped climate summit in the Amazon next month can deliver something increasingly rare in a fractured world: proof that nations can still unite to confront a global crisis (Photo by Mauro PIMENTEL / AFP) (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)
ICE agents conduct operations in the Little Village neighborhood, a predominantly Mexican-American community in Chicago, on Nov. 8, 2025. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Overview

  • Letters led by Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Adriano Espaillat ask Democratic-led states to block ICE and related federal units from self-service queries via Nlets.
  • The state-managed Nlets network enables direct lookups of DMV records by roughly 18,000 agencies across the U.S. and Canada without state staff involvement.
  • Nlets handled more than 290 million DMV queries between Oct. 1, 2024 and Oct. 1, 2025, according to data provided to Congress.
  • ICE made about 292,000 queries and Homeland Security Investigations about 605,000 in that period, the lawmakers said.
  • Only a handful of states, including New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Washington, have restricted ICE access, with Oregon reported to be taking similar steps, as lawmakers warn of an information gap and possible facial-recognition use of license photos.