Undercover work depends on a piece of mundane bureaucracy: a license plate that does not lead back to an agent. On May 28, the Justice Department went to court to defend that tool, suing Maine, Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts for refusing to issue confidential plates to federal law enforcement.
The lawsuits, filed in federal court, accuse the four states of violating the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause by denying undercover plates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection while continuing to issue them to state and local agencies.
“By denying undercover license plates to DHS components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities.”
The dispute has been building for weeks. On May 12, Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate sent letters to the states demanding that they rescind their policies by May 22. The letters argued that the restrictions violate the Supremacy Clause and put agents at risk: if a federal vehicle can be identified by its plate or registration, “officers, their families, and people under their protection will all be at risk,” Shumate wrote. He described the state policies as part of “a wave of targeted harassment” against federal officers.
The states refused, and their responses showed the fault lines. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said the state would not issue undercover plates for civil immigration enforcement, which is what most immigration arrests are. “We don’t have secret police in a democracy,” she said. “We’re not giving ICE undercover license plates for civil immigration enforcement.” The suspension followed a formal request from Customs and Border Protection amid reports of increased civil immigration sweeps in the region.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey drew a similar line. “In Massachusetts, we support law enforcement doing legitimate criminal investigative work, and agencies doing that work can request confidential plates,” she said. “But that’s not what we are seeing from ICE and its unconstitutional tactics.” Oregon paused the program while reviewing its rules; a spokesperson for Governor Tina Kotek said state and local agencies were unaffected and federal agencies could keep using plates they already held. Washington’s licensing agency declined to comment.
The Justice Department says the states’ civil-criminal distinction does not exist in the application process, and that Homeland Security agencies can demonstrate the plates are necessary to protect officers — a reason the states themselves accept for local agencies.
The case turns on a question with long roots in American federalism: how much deference states owe to federal law enforcement within their borders. The administration argues that control over immigration is exclusively federal and that states cannot use their motor-vehicle bureaus to obstruct it. The states argue that they are not refusing to cooperate with federal law; they are declining to lend their administrative machinery to arrests they consider unlawful.
The dispute is part of a broader pattern. The administration has sued sanctuary jurisdictions over immigration policies, and state attorneys general have returned the favor, challenging federal actions in state courts. The license-plate cases are distinctive because they reach into an area — vehicle registration — where states have unquestioned authority and where the federal government needs state cooperation to do its work.
For ICE agents in the field, the stakes are practical. Confidential plates are used not only for immigration arrests but for investigations of weapons trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism and fraud. Agents who cannot obtain them become identifiable at traffic lights and in driveways; suspects can flee, destroy evidence or take countermeasures before an operation begins. The Justice Department says that puts officers, their families and people under federal protection in danger.
Civil-liberties groups see it differently. They argue that secret plates make federal enforcement unaccountable and that states are entitled to set the terms under which their citizens can be stopped by officers who cannot be identified. The states’ position is that a plate that hides a federal agent from public view also hides him from the rule of law.
The lawsuits will be decided in federal courts where the administration’s supremacy arguments have generally fared well in recent years, though immigration cases have produced mixed results. Analysts said the outcome could determine whether states can refuse similar federal requests in other areas — from surveillance assistance to data access — or whether the federal government can compel state machinery to serve federal enforcement.
The immediate effect is uncertainty. Federal agents in the four states will keep working with the plates they already hold, and the states say they will keep enforcing their policies until courts rule. Neither side expects a quick resolution. The case will test how far the federal government can push into state-administered systems, and whether a state can say no to federal enforcement without paying a constitutional price.
