New York — A federal judge on Tuesday gave the green light to New York’s so-called green light law, rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to block the state from Giving people driving licenses Without proving their presence in the country legally.
U.S. District Judge Anne M. Nardacci in Albany ruled that the Republican administration — which has challenged the law under President Donald Trump’s campaign against illegal immigration — failed to support its claims that the state law usurps federal law or illegally regulates or unlawfully discriminates against the federal government.
The Justice Department sued the state over the law in February, naming Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James as defendants. At a news conference announcing the lawsuit, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the officials, both Democrats, of prioritizing “illegal aliens over American citizens.”
“As I have said from the beginning, our laws protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” James said in a statement on Friday. “I will always stand up for New Yorkers and the rule of law.”
A message seeking comment was left for the Ministry of Justice.
Nardacci, who was appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, wrote that her job was not to evaluate the desirability of the green light law as a political issue. Instead, she said in a 23-page opinion, the goal was to evaluate whether the Trump administration’s arguments demonstrated that the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which gives federal laws precedence over state laws.
The administration “failed to make such an allegation,” she wrote.
The Green Light Law was enacted in part to improve public safety on the roads, as people without licenses sometimes drove without a license, or without passing a road test. The state also makes it easier for holders of these licenses to obtain car insurance, thus reducing accidents involving uninsured drivers.
Under the law, people who do not have a valid Social Security number can provide alternative forms of identification that include valid passports and driver’s licenses issued in other countries. Applicants still must obtain a permit and pass a road test to qualify for a “regular driver’s licence.” It does not apply to commercial driver’s licenses.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit sought to strike down the law as a “direct assault on federal immigration laws, and the federal authorities that administer them.” He highlighted a provision that would require the commissioner of the state Department of Motor Vehicles 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 sought to pressure New York to change the law by barring anyone from the state from enrolling in trusted traveler programs, meaning they would spend longer periods passing through security lines at airports.
The governor at the time, Andrew Cuomo, offered to restore federal access to driving records on a limited basis, but said he would not allow immigration agents to see lists of people who had applied for special licenses available to immigrants who could not prove legal residency in the United States. The administration eventually restored New Yorkers’ access to the Trusted Traveler program after a brief legal battle.
In the lawsuit that was dismissed Tuesday, the administration said it might be easier to enforce federal immigration priorities if federal authorities had unfettered access to New York driver information. Such information “remains available to federal immigration authorities” through a statutory court order or court order, Nardacci wrote, echoing the ruling of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the county clerk’s earlier challenge to the law.