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Senator Wyden of Oregon and others allege that Maryland state systems currently allow Immigration Customs & Enforcement (ICE) to access sensitive personal data without a warrant. If true, that’s a violation of state law.
According to a November letter from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden to Governor Moore, ICE has “frictionless, self-service access to the personal data” of all Maryland residents. Wyden and 39 other representatives signed these letters, which were sent to 19 Democratic governors throughout the country (including Moore), urging them to use available methods to block ICE officials from accessing this data via the third-party system, Nlets.
Nlets describes itself as a “computer-based message switching system that links together and supports every state, local, and federal law enforcement, justice, and public safety agency for the purposes of sharing and exchanging critical information.” Basically, it’s a massive system that lets different law enforcement agencies quickly share information with each other. Federal agencies like the FBI use it to pull data like criminal records, vehicle registrations, and even photos from Driver’s Licenses, sourcing them from a network of individual state systems like the MVA, which all ultimately feed up into Nlets.
ICE was logging into Dashboard, Maryland’s law enforcement database, and running facial recognition searches on driver’s license photos without any authorization process.
Every state government does some sharing through Nlets, although the specific regulations for what can be shared vary by state. In Maryland, the Maryland Driver Privacy Act (MDPA), passed by the General Assembly in 2021, requires state agencies and employees to deny access to “personal information or certain photographic images unless a valid warrant is provided” if it’s being used for civil immigration enforcement.
According to Emily Tucker, Executive Director at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, the MDPA was specifically written with ICE abuses of Nlets in mind, after it was discovered that ICE was logging into Dashboard, Maryland’s law enforcement database, and running facial recognition searches on driver’s license photos without any authorization process.
So why is Moore now being urged to prevent the sharing this data, if sharing it became illegal back in 2021? Is this data still easily accessible to ICE?
It’s difficult to know for sure. Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which ultimately controls state connections to Nlets, was unable to provide immediate comment on the status of the Nlets system sharing with ICE.
However, certain signs support the idea that Maryland systems are still queryable by ICE, violating the MDPA. Wyden’s letter was thoroughly detailed, and it’s difficult to imagine a U.S. Senator failing to check his facts before getting the signatures of 39 other representatives and sending public letters to 19 governors. It’s also worth noting that neither of Maryland’s Senators signed this letter, despite them both having strong records of support for the rights of immigrants.
Back when she was the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks advocated for legislation that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain Driver’s Licenses. Now, that same information may be turned against them.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen made national news back in April when he travelled to El Salvador to speak to Kilmar Ábrego García, an immigrant wrongly deported by ICE, despite an order from a judge that was meant to let him stay in the states. A spokesperson from Van Hollen’s office, when asked about the serious risks posed by the alleged Nlets loophole, said that he “remains unrelenting in pushing back against abuses by ICE and protecting the data of Marylanders” and is “in touch with the Governor’s office, urging them to take all necessary measures to prevent Maryland driver’s license data from being wrongfully accessed and misused, and were informed that they are working to do so.”
Back when she was the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks advocated for legislation that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain Driver’s Licenses. Now, that same information may be turned against them. Alsobrooks’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Governor’s Office also did not provide a direct answer to the question of whether Nlets can currently be queried by ICE without a warrant. Rhyan Lake, Senior Communications Strategist for the Governor’s Office, said the following:
“The Moore–Miller Administration is committed to protecting the privacy of Marylanders’ personal information. Although federal agencies do not have direct access to the MVA database, the State is taking proactive measures to ensure federal law enforcement access through third-party systems such as the International Justice and Public Safety Network (Nlets) complies with state and federal law. To that end, the State 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.”
Lake did not respond to follow-up questions attempting to clarify the current state of data privacy in Maryland, how this situation came to be, and why this has seemingly been an ongoing issue.
This comes on the heels of other serious criticism of the way Moore runs Maryland. Just yesterday, The Baltimore Banner reported that officials in the Governor’s Office had set their messages to delete within 24 hours, functionally destroying records of government communications. Back in October, Moore boasted a 54% approval rate, but many of those polled struggled to name his tangible accomplishments.
The implications of this don’t only affect undocumented immigrants, either.
At times, Moore’s stance on ICE has been unclear. His anti-Trump rhetoric and condemnation of unconstitutional actions has grown stronger since he signed the Maryland Values Act, which made it difficult for ICE agents to raid locations like churches and schools. But there are some protective policy measures for immigrants that Moore has eschewed or declined to discuss his stance on. Moore has been noncommittal about banning 287(g) agreements in Maryland, which many immigration policy experts say are one of the most powerful tools that ICE uses to facilitate their mass deportation operations.
If these allegations are true, it’s another point against Moore’s efficacy to combat the wide-spread, racially-driven, and unconstitutional efforts of ICE. It’s a gravely concerning prospect.
The implications of this don’t only affect undocumented immigrants, either. “The data …accessible through Nlets is data on everybody, regardless of immigration status,” Tucker said. “I am concerned that under the auspices of immigration authority, with the accountability-free shield of that power, an ICE agent could do any search, for any person, for any reason.”
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