{"id":29463,"date":"2026-01-08T18:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T18:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=29463"},"modified":"2026-01-08T18:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T18:27:10","slug":"judge-rejects-trump-admin-challenge-to-new-yorks-green-light-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=29463","title":{"rendered":"Judge Rejects Trump Admin Challenge To New York\u2019s \u2018Green Light Law\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration\u2019s request to stop New York\u2019s so-called Green Light Law. The law lets the state give driver\u2019s licenses to people even if they can\u2019t show that they are in the country legally.<\/p>\n

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In Albany, U.S. District Judge Anne Nardacci\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that the Trump administration did not back up its arguments that some parts of the state law are overridden by federal law, illegally control the federal government, or illegally treat the federal government differently.<\/p>\n

In February, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the state law, claiming that it is unconstitutional because it goes against the Constitution\u2019s Supremacy Clause, which says that federal laws are more important than state laws. They also asked the court not to let the statute be enforced.<\/p>\n

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The state of New York was named in the lawsuit, along with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic Attorney General Letitia James as defendants.<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, the DOJ questioned three specific parts of the law. One of these parts did not allow the DMV to share a person\u2019s records or information with \u201cany agency that primarily enforces immigration law or to any employee or agent of such agency\u201d without a court order or warrant.<\/p>\n

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Another rule said that anyone who has access to DMV records has to promise they won\u2019t share the information. The part of the law that is being argued about required the DMV to let a person know within three days of getting a request for information or records from federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n

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Nardacci admitted that the lawsuit is about immigration enforcement, which is a hot-button political issue. However, she stressed in the ruling that her job is not to judge the policy, but to see if the plaintiffs proved it violates the Supremacy Clause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court\u2019s role is not to evaluate the desirability of the Green Light Law as a policy matter, but rather to assess whether Plaintiff\u2019s well-pled allegations, accepted as true, establish that the challenged provisions of the Green Light Law violate the Constitution\u2019s Supremacy Clause,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court concludes that Plaintiff has failed to state such a claim,\u201d she added<\/p>\n

When she filed the lawsuit, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Hochul and James were putting \u201cillegal aliens over American citizens.\u201d This is because the disputed state law prevents federal officers from enforcing immigration laws from seeing illegal immigrants\u2019 criminal driving records during traffic stops.<\/p>\n

The DOJ\u2019s lawsuit called the law \u201ca frontal assault on the federal immigration laws, and the federal authorities that administer them.\u201d They based this claim on the fact that the law requires the DMV commissioner to tell people who are in the country illegally when a federal immigration agency asks for their information.<\/p>\n

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The lawsuit also said that the Trump administration\u2019s immigration plans might be easier to carry out if federal officials could see New York\u2019s driver information at any time.<\/p>\n

The Green Light Law went into effect in 2019, but after a US Customs and Border Protection agent was killed during a shootout after a traffic stop with a German national in Vermont near the northern US-Canada border in January, there was a renewed call for criticism of the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny information that can help law enforcement stay safe as they conduct their duties has pretty much been taken away with this Green Light Law,\u201d Hector Garza, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Fox News<\/a>\u00a0at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat [the Green Light Law] does, is that it prevents law enforcement agents from getting any type of information in regards to any registrations that the state has,\u201d Garza added. \u201cFor example, before we engage in traffic stops, typically law enforcement will always conduct a vehicle registration check to see if there\u2019s any warrants to see if that person is considered armed and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n