Democratic lawmakers say some states that don't want to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be unintentionally allowing the agency access to residents' driver and criminal records through a law-enforcement data network.

A group of 40 congressional Democrats, led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), [1]sent letters to 19 Democratic governors on Wednesday warning them of an "information gap" that has allowed ICE to collect driver's license and registration information from the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System.

Also known as Nlets, the network, operated by private nonprofit the International Justice & Public Safety Network, links law-enforcement systems from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and roughly 18,000 federal, state, local, and Canadian agencies. Along with driver's license and vehicle registration records, Nlets carries information such as criminal histories, concealed-weapon permit data, and other law-enforcement files shared between jurisdictions.

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The elected officials noted in their letters that states have granular opt-in controls that limit who can access what data or ask what sort of queries, and it's here that they say ICE is undermining state-level efforts to restrict access "to … federal agencies that are now acting as Trump's shock troops" in the administration's massive [3]deportation push .

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"Because of the technical complexity of Nlets' system, few state government officials understand how their state is sharing their residents' data with federal and out-of-state agencies," the letters read. "Elected officials … have not been fully briefed on the current scale of state information sharing with ICE and other federal agencies, nor the availability of technical controls to restrict data sharing with these federal agencies."

Nlets has been known for years to play "an outsized and often opaque role in immigration enforcement," the National Immigration Law Center [6]noted in 2020, likewise warning that immigration enforcement officials have provided little information about how they use Nlets, which the congressional letters suggest may be intentional.

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According to the elected officials, state-level policies designed to restrict Department of Motor Vehicles data sharing with immigration authorities are often ineffective thanks to Nlets. DMV databases aren't connected to Nlets directly, for example, but the data is fed into the system by state police, which they say "act as a conduit" for out-of-state and federal agencies to access that data via Nlets. Simultaneously, Nlets doesn't require ICE and other federal agencies to indicate the purpose of a query, meaning that state-level agencies never have the opportunity to proactively block a request they wouldn't agree to.

Nlets facilitated more than 290 million queries for DMV data in the 12-month period ending October 1, 2025, according to data shared with Congress cited in the letters. Of those searches, 292,114 were conducted by ICE, and 605,116 were from Homeland Security Investigations.

[8]Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

[9]ICE plans to scour Facebook, TikTok, X, and even defunct Google+ for illegal immigration leads

[10]Smile! Uncle Sam wants to scan your face on the way in – and out

[11]Uncle Sam claims H-1B fraud crackdown is working as registrations drop 25%

Lest you think state-level action to block ICE queries of DMV data in Nlets could hamper law enforcement efforts, the Democrats argue that wouldn't be the case.

"Blocking agencies' unfettered access to your state's data through Nlets will not prevent federal law enforcement from obtaining information needed to investigate serious crimes," the Dems advise the governors, "but taking these measures will significantly increase accountability and reduce abuse."

While not explicitly stated in the letters, some of the data that ICE could be collecting could be furthering the use of its [12]mobile biometric identification app that's come under fire in recent months. ICE's Mobile Fortify app, which reportedly lets agents use a phone's camera to photograph individuals and match those images against law-enforcement and immigration databases, draws on photographs from multiple federal and state sources; Nlets includes photographs from driver's licenses, and may be included in ICE's database.

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A mobile app developed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that can be used by local law enforcement to identify individuals and refer them to ICE is currently available [14]via Google Play, a fact that has drawn criticism in light of Google's decision to [15]remove apps designed to track immigration enforcement activity in communities while leaving such an app available for law enforcement use. Apple has removed similar ICE and immigration enforcement-tracking apps from the App Store, but doesn't currently host the Mobile Identify app. ®

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[1] https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-espaillat-and-38-members-of-congress-urge-democratic-governors-to-block-ice-from-accessing-americans-dmv-data

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[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/21/ice_enlists_palantir_to_develop/

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[6] https://www.nilc.org/resources/nlets-questions-and-answers/

[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRZjBlcnEyASahARUBGEdwAAAQA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/04/dhs_wants_to_collect_biometric_data/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/03/ice_contractors_social_media_spy/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/us_foreigner_facial_scans/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/15/h1b_applications_droped/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/15/cbp_has_deployed_billions_in/

[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRZjBlcnEyASahARUBGEdwAAAQA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[14] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.dhs.cbp.mobile.identify.global

[15] https://www.theverge.com/news/791533/google-apple-ice-tracking-app-store-red-dot-iceblock

[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/