Congressional Dems urge blocking of ICE access to state drivers’ data

Multiple Democratic-led states have been urged by a group of lawmakers from the same party to follow the lead of Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington state in blocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement's access to their drivers' information, which could be weaponized in the Trump administration's mass deportation program, reports Reuters.

State DMV information has been inadvertently shared with ICE and other federal agencies through the Nlets system, wrote Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and 39 other legislators in letters to governors, which noted that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations body accounted for almost 900,000 queries to the database in the year leading up to October.

Hindering state DMV access "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," said the letters. Such a convoluted data sharing arrangement was noted by Property of the People Executive Director Ryan Shapiro to exhibit state agencies' lacking data protection capabilities.