Matthew Albence, the former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, criticized New York’s Green Light Law during this 2020 news conference at the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office. A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit by the Department of Justice that challenged the law that has allowed thousands of nonresident immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. (Paul Buckowski/Times Union)
Paul Buckowski/Times Union
ALBANY — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice that challenged New York’s Green Light Law, which has allowed thousands of nonresident immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses while blocking federal immigration and border enforcement agencies from accessing the state’s motor vehicle database.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Albany in February as President Donald J. Trump’s administration has sought to undo many of the immigration policies of former President Joe Biden, whose administration saw record numbers of illegal border crossings that sparked an immigration crisis. It alleged New York’s 2019 Green Light Law violated the supremacy clause of the Constitution and is preventing federal immigration officials from doing its congressionally authorized enforcement work.
Article continues below this ad
U.S. District Judge Anne M. Nardacci, in dismissing the lawsuit, drew a distinction between the “standard” driver’s licenses that are issued to immigrants who lack citizenship status, and the federally authorized licenses that are issued to individuals in trusted traveler programs, including “enhanced” driver’s licenses and “REAL IDs.”
Nardacci asserted there is also a distinction between standard licenses and commercial driver’s licenses, which are supposed to require more rigid reviews. But those types of licenses have been a hot-button issue as the Trump administration and some states are cracking down on migrants they say should not have been issued commercial driver’s licenses, including those who do not speak English, are not in the U.S. legally, or have not undergone proper safety training and background checks.
Earlier this month, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy alleged that one third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses were found by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to have been issued illegally.
Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.
Add Preferred Source
“Minnesota has 30 days to come into compliance and revoke the illegally issued licenses — or risk losing up to $30.4 million in federal highway funding,” the federal Department of Transportation said in a new release. “After months of deadly crashes caused by illegal foreign drivers, the department is cracking down on states that have failed to follow the law.
Article continues below this ad
Duffy said the audit found individuals with commercial driver’s licenses whose lawful presence in the U.S. had expired, drivers who were prohibited from being issued a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license, and others whose lawful presence in the U.S. had not been verified by the state of Minnesota. Duffy leveled similar allegations against New York on Dec. 12, also threatening to withhold federal transportation funds from the state.
In Nardacci’s ruling, she dismissed the Justice Department’s contention that the federal government is entitled to a wide swath of information in New York’s motor vehicle database, including an applicant’s “photograph, telephone number, place of birth, country of origin, place of employment, school or educational institution attended, source of income, status as a recipient of public benefits, the customer identification number associated with a public utilities account, (and) medical information or disability information.”
Nardacci said other courts have already decided that issue — federal statutes only entitle immigration authorities to information on a person’s citizenship or immigration classification — and said she “finds it unnecessary to spill further judicial ink on the issue.”
The Justice Department had sought a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction barring New York officials from enforcing the state law. The lawsuit named Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James and state Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Mark J.F. Schroeder as defendants. But Nardacci dismissed the claims against the governor and attorney general, noting they had no direct role in enforcing the provisions of the state law.
Article continues below this ad
The 2019 Driver’s License Access and Privacy Act, known as the Green Light Law, prohibits New York sheriff’s departments and other agencies from sharing motor vehicle data with federal authorities for immigration enforcement purposes. It also has allowed tens of thousands of immigrants — including many in the U.S. illegally — to obtain driver’s licenses.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the law prevents federal agents, including Border Patrol agents, from accessing the motor vehicle database when they pull someone over in New York.
“They’re giving a green light to any illegal alien in New York, where law enforcement officers cannot check their identity if they pull them over; law enforcement officers do not have access to their background, and if these great men and women pull over someone and don’t have access to their background they have no idea who they’re dealing with,” Bondi said earlier this year when the Justice Department’s lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Albany.
The 16-page complaint cast New York’s Green Light Law as“a frontal assault on the federal immigration laws, and the federal authorities that administer them.”
Article continues below this ad
The complaint also asserts the law singles out federal immigration agencies for “adverse treatment” by barring them from access to records that other agencies are allowed to obtain.
But Nardacci said the Justice Department had failed to esstablish “any actual conflict between federal law and the challenged provisions of the Green Light Law.”
The judge also said that the federal Immigration and Nationality Act does not require states to share information with federal authorities, or to make their job “easier.”
“It would make no sense to hold that a federal statute premised on state cooperation preempts a state law withholding that cooperation,” Nardacci wrote. “The laws make enforcement more burdensome than it would be if state and local law enforcement provided immigration officers with their assistance. But refusing to help is not the same as impeding.”
Article continues below this ad
The Times Union reported in 2021 that there had been allegations of widespread cheating and fraud in the driver permit program, including schemes to illicitly obtain driving credentials for immigrants. Many of those individuals also were suspected of using the licenses to falsely prove New York residency in order to receive unemployment benefits under the state’s pandemic-era Excluded Worker Fund. The $2.1 billion program had provided unemployment benefits for a short period in 2021 for immigrants who did not qualify for regular state and federal benefits.
A year ago, following an investigation by multiple agencies, including the New York inspector general’s office, five men, including two immigrants who had returned to Brazil, were indicted on federal charges in Massachusetts for conspiring to apply for New York driver’s licenses for more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants who did not live in New York.
Those charges alleged the group’s conspiracy took place between November 2020 and September 2025 and that they typically charged customers about $1,400 to obtain a driver’s license. The scheme relied on fraudulent residency documents and falsified driving school certificates, according to the indictment.
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other Democrats in Albany had said at the time the law was enacted that it was intended to improve public safety by ensuring noncitizen immigrants are legally authorized to drive.
Article continues below this ad
“From a state point of view, I want to make sure the people who are driving on our roads pass a driving test. It is a public safety issue,” Cuomo said in a February 2020 interview.
Although many other states also issue driver’s licenses to immigrants, New York’s decision to block access to the motor vehicle database has stoked outcry from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who have noted that Border Patrol and immigration enforcement agencies conduct work that often involves national security, human and drug trafficking, and other serious crimes. That criticism emerged in the final year of Trump’s first presidency but subsided during Biden’s administration amid leadership and policy changes.
Many law enforcement leaders have not opposed issuing driver’s licenses to people in the U.S. illegally, but they said New York’s decision to block access to the driver’s database by certain federal law enforcement agencies has impeded the ability of border and immigration enforcers to do their jobs.
Article continues below this ad