According to TheRegister.com, 40 congressional Democrats led by Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Adriano Espaillat sent letters to 19 Democratic governors on Wednesday warning about ICE accessing residents’ driver and criminal records through the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (Nlets). The network facilitated over 290 million DMV data queries in the 12-month period ending October 1, 2025, with ICE conducting 292,114 searches and Homeland Security Investigations making 605,116 queries. Despite state policies designed to restrict DMV data sharing with immigration authorities, Nlets allows federal agencies to bypass these protections because state police act as conduits feeding data into the system. The lawmakers argue this creates an “information gap” that undermines state efforts to limit data access to federal agencies engaged in deportation efforts.
How the backdoor works
Here’s the thing about Nlets – it’s this massive law enforcement data network that connects all 50 states, Washington D.C., and about 18,000 federal, state, local, and even Canadian agencies. States think they’re protecting resident data by limiting direct DMV access to ICE, but then state police departments feed that same data into Nlets. Basically, it’s like locking your front door but leaving the back door wide open with a welcome mat.
And get this – Nlets doesn’t require ICE or other federal agencies to indicate why they’re querying the data. So state agencies never get the chance to block requests they might disagree with. It’s a classic case of technical complexity creating policy loopholes. Few state officials actually understand how their data is being shared, which the lawmakers suggest might be intentional opacity.
The bigger picture
This isn’t just about database queries – it’s about how technology infrastructure can undermine democratic decisions. States that have passed laws limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement are finding their policies circumvented by systems they helped build for legitimate law enforcement purposes. The National Immigration Law Center warned about this back in 2020, calling Nlets’ role in immigration enforcement “outsized and often opaque.”
Now, consider the timing. We’re in an election year where immigration remains a hot-button issue, and this revelation puts Democratic governors in a tough spot. They’re being told they have technical controls available to restrict data sharing, but haven’t been using them effectively. That’s going to be awkward to explain to constituents who thought their state was protecting immigrant communities.
Tech and surveillance connections
This data sharing becomes even more concerning when you connect it to ICE’s mobile surveillance tools. The article mentions ICE’s Mobile Fortify app, which lets agents use phone cameras to photograph people and match against law enforcement databases. Where do you think those driver’s license photos in the database come from? Exactly – the same DMV data flowing through Nlets.
And there’s another layer here involving big tech. Customs and Border Protection has a mobile identification app available on Google Play that local law enforcement can use to identify people and refer them to ICE. Meanwhile, Google has removed apps designed to track immigration enforcement activity. So the tools for enforcement get platform support, while tools for community protection get removed. Interesting double standard, don’t you think?
What happens next
The Democrats are telling governors that blocking ICE’s Nlets access won’t hamper serious crime investigations – federal agencies could still get warrants or use other legal processes. But it would “significantly increase accountability and reduce abuse.” That’s the key argument here: this isn’t about preventing legitimate law enforcement, it’s about closing loopholes that enable mass data collection without oversight.
So what we’re really watching is a classic tech governance struggle. When you build interconnected systems for one purpose (law enforcement cooperation), they can be repurposed for very different objectives (immigration enforcement). The technical capabilities often outpace the policy safeguards. And now states are realizing they built something they can’t fully control.
