A group of Democratic lawmakers have sent letters to several state governors, including those in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Wisconsin. The letters warn that these states are inadvertently sharing drivers’ data with federal immigration authorities.
The correspondence informed the governors that their states are providing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and other federal agencies with frictionless, self-service access to the personal data of their residents. This access is facilitated through a non-profit managed by state police agencies called the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known as Nlets.
Nlets enables the sharing of state residents’ personal data, such as drivers’ license information, between state, local, and federal police agencies. The lawmakers have asked the governors to stop this practice and block access for ICE and other federal agencies they described as acting as shock troops.
For two decades, most states have made their residents’ data from Department of Motor Vehicles databases available for search and retrieval by approximately 18,000 federal and local law enforcement agencies across the United States and Canada. This system allows those agencies to directly access residents’ data without the knowledge or involvement of any state employee.
The letter also suggested that ICE could be using drivers’ license photos for a facial recognition application called Mobile Fortify. Agents use this app to identify people on the street, and it relies on a database of 200 million photos.
According to the letter, Nlets facilitated over 290 million queries for DMV data in the year before October 1, 2025. This included more than 290,000 queries from ICE and approximately 600,000 from Homeland Security Investigations.
The lawmakers stated that a major reason few states have restricted the data they share through Nlets is an information gap. They explained that due to the technical complexity of the Nlets system, few state government officials understand how their state is sharing resident data with federal and out-of-state agencies.
The letter said that blocking unfettered access would not prevent federal agencies from obtaining information for solving serious crimes. However, taking action would increase accountability and reduce abuse by allowing state employees to review data requests before they are fulfilled.
The lawmakers noted that some states, including Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington, have recently restricted the kind of data ICE can access via Nlets. They also reminded the governors that it is within their power to stop the practice at any time.