NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday gave the green light to New York’s so-called green light law, rejecting the Trump administration’s bid to stop the state from issuing driver’s licenses to people without proving they are in the country legally.
U.S. District Judge in Albany Anne M. Nardasi ruled that the Republican administration — which challenged the law under President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration — had failed to support claims that the state law usurps federal law or that it unlawfully regulates or unlawfully discriminates against the federal government.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the law in February, naming state Gov. Cathy Hochul and the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, as defendants. At a press conference announcing the case, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the officials, both Democrats, of prioritizing “illegal aliens over American citizens.”
“As I’ve said from the beginning, our laws protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” James said in a statement Friday. “I will always stand up for New Yorkers and the rule of law.”
A message seeking comment was left for the Justice Department.
Nardaki, appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, wrote that his job is not to evaluate the desirability of green light legislation as a policy matter. Instead, she said in the 23-page opinion, it is to assess whether the Trump administration’s argument that the law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution or that federal law takes precedence over state law.
The administration, he wrote, “has failed to convey such claims.”
The Green Light Law was enacted in part to improve public safety on the roads, as people without a license sometimes drive without one or without passing a road test. The state also makes it easier for such license holders to obtain auto insurance, thereby reducing accidents involving uninsured drivers.
Under the law, people without a valid Social Security number can submit alternative forms of ID that include valid passports and driver’s licenses issued in other countries. Applicants must still obtain a permit and pass a road test to qualify for a “standard driver’s license.” This does not apply to commercial driver’s licenses.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit sought to strike down the law as a “frontal assault on federal immigration laws and the federal officials who administer them.” It highlighted a provision requiring state motor vehicle commissioners to notify people who are in the country illegally when the federal immigration agency requests their information.
In 2020, during Trump’s first term, his administration tried to pressure New York to change laws barring anyone from the state from enrolling in trusted traveler programs, meaning they would spend longer times going through security lines at airports.
Then-Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed restoring federal access to driving records on a limited basis, but said he would not allow immigration agents to see lists of people who have applied for special licenses available to immigrants who cannot prove legal residency in the US.
In a lawsuit dismissed Tuesday, the administration argued that enforcing federal immigration priorities might be easier if federal officials had unfettered access to New York’s driver information. Echoing a decision by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an earlier challenge to the county clerk’s law, Nardaki wrote that such information “remains available to federal immigration authorities” through a legal court order or judicial warrant.
