A Delray Beach, Fla., police officer speaks with a driver in 2019. The Trump administration wants access to state driver’s license data through a computer network used by law enforcement to share records across state lines. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Four Republican states have agreed to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver’s license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network as part of the administration’s hunt for alleged noncitizen voters.

The Trump administration said as recently as October that federal officials wanted to obtain driver’s license records through the network.

The commitment from officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio comes as part of a settlement agreement filed on Friday in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit was originally brought by the states last year alleging the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to help states verify voter eligibility.

The settlement, between the states and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, requires the federal department to continue its development of a powerful citizenship verification program known as SAVE. Earlier this year, federal officials repurposed SAVE into a program capable of scanning millions of state voter records for instances of noncitizen registered voters.

In return, the states have agreed to support Homeland Security’s efforts to access the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, an obscure computer network that typically allows law enforcement agencies to search driver’s license records across state lines. Nlets — as the system is known — lets police officers easily look up the driving records of out-of-state motorists.

The Trump administration and some Republican election officials have promoted the changes to SAVE as a useful tool to identify potential noncitizen voters, and Indiana had already agreed to provide voter records. Critics, including some Democrats, say the Trump administration is building a massive database of U.S. residents that President Donald Trump or a future president could use for spying or targeting political enemies.

Stateline reported last week, before the settlement agreement was filed in court, that Homeland Security publicly confirmed it wants to connect Nlets to SAVE.

A notice published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register said driver’s licenses are the most widely used form of identification, and that by working with states and national agencies, including Nlets, “SAVE will use driver’s license and state identification card numbers to check and confirm identity information.”

A federal official also previously told a virtual meeting of state election officials in May that Homeland Security was seeking “to avoid having to connect to 50 state databases” and wanted a “simpler solution,” such as Nlets, according to government records published by the transparency group American Oversight.

The new settlement lays out the timeline for how the Trump administration could acquire the four states’ records.

Within 90 days of the execution of the agreement, the four states may provide Homeland Security with 1,000 randomly selected driver’s license records from their state for verification as part of a quality improvement process for SAVE.

According to the agreement, the states that provide the records will “make best efforts to support and encourage DHS’s efforts to receive and have full use of state driver’s license records from the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System” and state driver’s license agencies.

The language in the agreement is open-ended and doesn’t make clear whether the pledge to help Homeland Security obtain access to Nlets is limited to drivers from those four states or is intended to require the states to help the agency acquire the records of drivers nationwide.

An agreement to help

The agreement could pave the way for Republican officials in other states to provide access to license data.

Nlets is a nonprofit organization that facilitates data sharing among law enforcement agencies across state lines. States decide what information to make available through Nlets, and which agencies can access it. That means the four states could try to influence peers to share Nlets data with the Trump administration.

“They’re not just talking about driver’s license numbers, they’re talking about the driver’s records. What possible reason would DHS have in an election or voting context — or any context whatsoever — for obtaining the ‘full use of state driver’s license records,’” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, said in a statement to Stateline that the settlement agreement provides another layer of election integrity and protection as officials seek to ensure only eligible voters are registered. He didn’t directly address questions about Nlets access.

“The SAVE program provides us with critical information, but we must also continue to utilize information from other state and federal partners to maintain clean and accurate lists,” Pate said in the statement.

Two weeks before the Nov. 5, 2024, election, Pate issued guidance to Iowa county auditors to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who were identified by the secretary of state’s office as potential noncitizens. The voters had reported to the state Department of Transportation or another government entity that they were not U.S. citizens in the past 12 years and went on to register to vote, according to the guidance.

In March, Pate said his office gained access to the SAVE database and found 277 of those people were confirmed to not have U.S. citizenship — just under 12% of the individuals identified as potential noncitizens.

Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency under Homeland Security that oversees SAVE — told Stateline last week that USCIS was committed to “eliminating barriers to securing the nation’s electoral process.”

“By allowing states to efficiently verify voter eligibility, we are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” Tragesser said in a statement.

The SAVE program — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. In the past, SAVE could search only one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches; federal officials in May also connected the program to Social Security data.

“It’s a potentially dangerous mix to put driver’s license and Social Security number and date of birth information out there … where we really don’t know yet how and when and where it’s going to be used,” Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon said in an interview on Monday.

Democratic states object

As the Trump administration has encouraged states to use SAVE, the Justice Department has also demanded states provide the department with unredacted copies of their voter rolls. The Trump administration has previously confirmed the Justice Department is sharing voter information with Homeland Security.

The Justice Department has sued six, mostly Democratic, states for refusing to turn over the data. Those lawsuits remain pending.

On Monday, 12 state secretaries of state submitted a 29-page public comment, in response to SAVE’s Federal Register notice, criticizing the overhaul. The secretaries wrote that while Homeland Security claims the changes make the program an effective tool for verifying voters, the modifications are “likely to degrade, not enhance” states’ efforts to ensure free, fair and secure elections.

“What the modified system will do … is allow the federal government to capture sensitive data on hundreds of millions of voters nationwide and distribute that information as it sees fit,” the secretaries wrote.

The secretaries of state of California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington signed on to the comment.

The settlement agreement purports to make this year’s changes to SAVE legally binding.

The agreement asks that a federal court retain jurisdiction over the case for 20 years for the purposes of enforcing it — a move that in theory could make it harder for a future Democratic president to reverse the changes to SAVE.

But Becker, of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he doesn’t expect the settlement agreement would make it more difficult for a future administration to undo the overhaul.

“Should a different administration come in that disagrees with this approach,” Becker said, “I would expect that they would almost certainly completely change how the system operates and how the states can access it and what data the federal government procures.”

Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Robin Opsahl contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

A California Highway Patrol officer talks to a driver during a traffic stop in October. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants access to state driver’s license data as it builds a powerful citizenship verification program. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Trump administration wants access to state driver’s license data on millions of U.S. residents as it builds a powerful citizenship verification program amid its clampdown on voter fraud and illegal immigration.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeks access to an obscure computer network used by law enforcement agencies, according to a federal notice, potentially allowing officials to bypass negotiating with states for the records.

The information would then be plugged into a Homeland Security program known as SAVE that Trump officials have deployed to search for rare instances of alleged noncitizen voters and to verify citizenship. The plan comes as the Trump administration demands states share copies of their voter files that include sensitive personal data that also is being plugged into SAVE; it is suing some states that refuse.

Trump officials tout the SAVE program as a boost for election integrity. But critics of the program warn the federal government is constructing a massive, centralized information source on Americans. They fear President Donald Trump or a future president could use the tool to surveil residents or target political enemies.

“What this SAVE database expansion will do is serve as a central pillar to build dossiers on all of us,” said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

At the same time, Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, conducted nearly 900,000 searches for state driver’s license and other motor vehicle data over the past year using the same data-sharing network that Homeland Security wants to link to SAVE, according to information provided to Congress. The network is called Nlets — formerly the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, now known as the International Justice and Public Safety Network.

Dozens of congressional Democrats in mid-November warned Democratic governors that Nlets makes driver’s license data available to ICE, including from states that restrict cooperation with the agency. While ICE, a Homeland Security agency, has long had access to Nlets, some Democrats are voicing renewed alarm amid Trump’s sweeping deportation campaign.

At least five states — Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington — have blocked Nlets’ ability to share their driver’s license records with ICE, according to the Nov. 12 letter from 40 Democratic lawmakers. Oregon also is taking steps to block access.

In Colorado, state Sen. Julie Gonzales said she is willing to advance bills to block the Nlets data sharing. Gonzales, a Democrat who chairs the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee, has previously sponsored legislation to limit what personal information is shared with the federal government for immigration enforcement.

“It is like playing Whac-A-Mole, but the Constitution applies to ICE, too,” Gonzales said.

The recent developments underscore the ongoing struggle between Democratic states and the Trump administration over how much access Homeland Security should have to their residents’ personal data. For their part, some Republican state officials have voiced support for the administration’s moves and want to aid the search for noncitizen voters and individuals in the country illegally.

Data and privacy experts told Stateline the current moment could lead to more centralization of personal data by the federal government and an eroding expectation of privacy when it comes to driver’s license information. The federal government is for the first time essentially building a U.S. citizenship database, they said.

Homeland Security is proposing to take Nlets outside its intended use, said John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy group that argues privacy is a fundamental right.

Nlets is a nonprofit organization that facilitates data sharing among law enforcement agencies across state lines. At a basic level, Nlets is the system that allows police officers to quickly look up the driver’s license information of out-of-state motorists they pull over.

States decide what information to make available through Nlets, and which agencies can access it. Each state has an Nlets member, typically that state’s highway patrol or equivalent agency. Several federal law enforcement agencies also are members.

“It appears that DHS is eyeing it for something quite different, for mass extraction of driver’s license information that would be far beyond the sort of targeted enforcement purposes of a system like Nlets,” Davisson said.

Driver data idea floated in May

Homeland Security’s SAVE program — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. But it can now scan state voter rolls for alleged noncitizen voters.

In the past, SAVE could search only one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches, allowing officials to potentially scan through information on millions of registered voters. Federal officials in May connected the program to Social Security data; linking driver’s license data through Nlets would provide an additional mountain of data on U.S. residents.

The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan group that advocates for voting rights, filed a federal lawsuit in September against Homeland Security over the transformation of SAVE. In its complaint, the organization accused the department of ignoring federal law to create comprehensive databases of American citizens’ data.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, last week declined to temporarily block SAVE’s overhaul while the lawsuit proceeds. But Sooknanan wrote in an opinion that based on the current record, “the Court is troubled by the recent changes to SAVE and doubts the lawfulness of the Government’s actions.”

Homeland Security publicly confirmed it wants to connect Nlets to SAVE in an Oct. 31 Federal Register notice. The notice said driver’s licenses are the most widely used form of identification, and by working with states and national agencies, including Nlets, “SAVE will use driver’s license and state identification card numbers to check and confirm identity information.”

The agency also privately floated its interest in Nlets months earlier.

According to minutes of a May virtual meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State Elections Committee, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) official Brian Broderick told the group that his agency — the Homeland Security agency that administers SAVE — was seeking “to avoid having to connect to 50 state databases” and wanted a “simpler solution,” such as Nlets.

The minutes were contained in records from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office obtained by American Oversight, a nonpartisan transparency group that frequently files records requests. Mother Jones magazine first reported on the records.

Nlets and the Texas Secretary of State’s Office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

On Friday, National Association of Secretaries of State spokesperson Brittany Hamilton wrote in an email to Stateline that at that time, “we have not received specific updates from USCIS on this aspect of driver’s license data potential usage.”

In a statement, USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser encouraged all federal, state and local agencies to use SAVE.

“USCIS remains dedicated to eliminating barriers to securing the nation’s electoral process. By allowing states to efficiently verify voter eligibility, we are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” Tragesser wrote.

State restrictions flawed, lawmakers say

Some Democrats are separately pushing to limit ICE’s access to driver’s license data through Nlets. The Nov. 12 congressional letter warned that while some states have restrictions on data sharing with immigration authorities, the limits are often ineffective because of major flaws.

State limits sometimes apply only to state motor vehicle agencies, which don’t connect to Nlets — and often don’t apply to state police agencies that do connect, the letter said. And even though state restrictions target data-sharing for immigration enforcement, Nlets doesn’t indicate the purpose of a request.

“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,” wrote U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York and 38 other Democrats.

Homeland Security didn’t address Stateline’s questions about ICE’s access to state driver’s license data through Nlets.

Advocates for immigrants have long raised concerns about ICE access to state driver’s license data through Nlets. Nineteen states allow residents to obtain driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status, according to the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy group. Those driver’s license records represent a wealth of information on noncitizens.

While ICE can’t use Nlets to obtain records of all noncitizens issued licenses, the agency can use the search tool to obtain a variety of information on individuals, such as date of birth, sex, address and Social Security number, according to the law center. Sometimes a photo is also available — a particular concern for immigrants and their advocates amid reports that ICE has deployed facial recognition tools in the field.

“I think that for many years, folks around the country that are concerned about privacy, that are concerned about immigrants, have been trying to sound the alarm about this issue,” said Matthew Lopas, director of state advocacy and technical assistance at the National Immigration Law Center.

Stateline contacted all 50 state governors to ask about Nlets. Forty-one offices didn’t respond and most others provided high-level statements or referred questions to other agencies.

But Maryland indicated it was taking “proactive measures” to ensure that federal agencies’ access to its data through Nlets complies with state and federal law. A 2021 state law limits the sharing of driver’s license data with federal immigration authorities.

Maryland “is working with Nlets to ensure that Marylanders’ data is not misused for civil immigration enforcement absent a valid judicial warrant, and we intend to share more information on that effort as we are able,” Rhyan Lake, a spokesperson for Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, said in a statement to Stateline.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety, which is overseen by Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden, cautioned against limiting data-sharing among law enforcement. Records obtained through Nlets include data on wanted individuals and other information that can help identify potential threats to officers and agents, the department said in a statement provided by Director of Communications Brad Reiners.

“We reject the concerns outlined in the [Democratic lawmakers’] letter and remain deeply concerned about the potentially dangerous consequences of limiting access to this information,” the statement says.

In Oregon, state officials plan to cut off ICE’s Nlets access to its driver’s license data, but no date has been set, Oregon State Police Capt. Kyle Kennedy, an agency spokesperson, wrote in an email.

“We are working with other states to assist in considering a path forward,” Kennedy wrote.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.