A group of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to several state governors, including Arizona, California, Colorado and Wisconsin, warning that their states are inadvertently sharing driver data with federal immigration authorities.
The letter, first reported by Reuters, told governors that each state provides U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies with “fleet self-service access to the personal data of all residents” through a nonprofit called the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (Nlets), which is managed by state law enforcement agencies.
Nlets facilitate the sharing of state residents' personal data (in this case, driver's license data) between state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies.
Lawmakers called on a group of governors to end the practice and cut off access to ICE and “other federal agencies acting as President Trump's shock troops.”
ICE and Nlets did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's requests for comment.
For two decades, most states have made their resident data, such as driver's licenses and other information from each state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) database, searchable and retrievable by the approximately 18,000 federal and local law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada. The practice would give these agencies direct access to population data without the knowledge or involvement of state officials, according to the letter.
The letter says ICE may be using driver's license photos in a facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify, which agents use to identify people on the street and relies on 200 million photos.
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According to the letter, Nlets facilitated “over 290 million DMV data queries,” including over 290,000 queries from ICE and approximately 600,000 queries from Homeland Security Investigations in the year ending October 1, 2025.
“It is now abundantly clear that the digital divide is a key reason why so few states have locked down the data they share through Nlets,” the letter said. “Nlets' system is technically complex, and few state government employees understand how the state shares its residents' data with the federal government and other out-of-state agencies,” the letter said.
The letter said blocking “unfettered access” would not prevent federal agencies from obtaining information from states to solve major crimes, but that action would “strengthen accountability and reduce abuse” by allowing state officials to first review data requests.
Lawmakers noted that some states, including Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington, have recently restricted the types of data that ICE can access through Nlets, and reminded governors that it is up to states to end this practice at any time.