Iowa Among States that Will Help Homeland Security Obtain Driver's License Records

Our Driftless region deserves more than postcards — it deserves a watchdog. Be that support. Four Republican states have agreed to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver's license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network as part of the administration's hunt for alleged noncitizen voters. The Trump administration said as recently as October that federal officials wanted to obtain driver's license records through the network. The commitment from officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio comes as part of a settlement agreement filed on Friday in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit was originally brought by the states last year alleging the Biden administration wasn't doing enough to help states verify voter eligibility. The settlement, between the states and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, requires the federal department to continue its development of a powerful citizenship verification program known as SAVE. Earlier this year, federal officials repurposed SAVE into a program capable of scanning millions of state voter records for instances of noncitizen registered voters. Iowa settlement leads to data swap Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird announced Monday that Iowa, alongside three other states, has reached a settlement agreement allowing state officials to access a federal immigration database to verify citizenship status of voters for the next 20 years. The Iowa Secretary of State's office reported that the settlement would allow election officials to "upload batch data, including Social Security numbers, to verify SAVE information against voter registration lists." State officials did not specifically mention the agreement to provide driver's license data to the federal government as part of their statements about the settlement. — Robin Opsahl In return, the states have agreed to support Homeland Security's efforts to access the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, an obscure computer network that typically allows law enforcement agencies to search driver's license records across state lines. Nlets—as the system is known—lets police officers easily look up the driving records of out-of-state motorists. The Trump administration and some Republican election officials have promoted the changes to SAVE as a useful tool to identify potential noncitizen voters, and Indiana had already agreed to provide voter records. Critics, including some Democrats, say the Trump administration is building a massive database of U.S. residents that President Donald Trump or a future president could use for spying or targeting political enemies. Stateline reported last week, before the settlement agreement was filed in court, that Homeland Security publicly confirmed it wants to connect Nlets to SAVE. A notice published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register said driver's licenses are the most widely used form of identification, and that by working with states and national agencies, including Nlets, "SAVE will use driver's license and state identification card numbers to check and confirm identity information." A federal official also previously told a virtual meeting of state election officials in May that Homeland Security was seeking "to avoid having to connect to 50 state databases" and wanted a "simpler solution," such as Nlets, according to government records published by the transparency group American Oversight. The new settlement lays out the timeline for how the Trump administration could acquire the four states' records. Within 90 days of the execution of the agreement, the four states may provide Homeland Security with 1,000 randomly selected driver's license records from their state for verification as part of a quality improvement process for SAVE. According to the agreement, the states that provide the records will "make best efforts to support and encourage DHS's efforts to receive and have full use of state driver's license records from the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System" and state driver's license agencies. The language in the agreement is open-ended and doesn't make clear whether the pledge to help Homeland Security obtain access to Nlets is limited to drivers from those four states or is intended to require the states to help the agency acquire the records of drivers nationwide. An agreement to help The agreement could pave the way for Republican officials in other states to provide access to license data. Nlets is a nonprofit organization that facilitates data sharing among law enforcement agencies across state lines. States decide what information to make available through Nlets, and which agencies can access it. That means the four states could try to influence peers to share Nlets data with the Trump administration. "They're not just talking about driver's license numbers, they're talking about the driver's records. What possible reason would DHS have in an election or voting context—or any context whatsoever—for obtaining the 'full use of state driver's license records,'" said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, said in a statement to Stateline that the settlement agreement provides another layer of election integrity and protection as officials seek to ensure only eligible voters are registered. He didn't directly address questions about Nlets access. "The SAVE program provides us with critical information, but we must also continue to utilize information from other state and federal partners to maintain clean and accurate lists," Pate said in the statement. Two weeks before the Nov. 5, 2024, election, Pate issued guidance to Iowa county auditors to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who were identified by the secretary of state's office as potential noncitizens. The voters had reported to the state Department of Transportation or another government entity that they were not U.S. citizens in the past 12 years and went on to register to vote, according to the guidance. In March, Pate said his office gained access to the SAVE database and found 277 of those people were confirmed to not have U.S. citizenship — just under 12% of the individuals identified as potential noncitizens. What possible reason would DHS have in an election or voting context — or any context whatsoever — for obtaining the 'full use of state driver's license records.' – David Becker, executive director, Center for Election Innovation & Research Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency under Homeland Security that oversees SAVE—told Stateline last week that USCIS was committed to "eliminating barriers to securing the nation's electoral process." "By allowing states to efficiently verify voter eligibility, we are reinforcing the principle that America's elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens," Tragesser said in a statement. The SAVE program—Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements—was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. In the past, SAVE could search only one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches; federal officials in May also connected the program to Social Security data. "It's a potentially dangerous mix to put driver's license and Social Security number and date of birth information out there … where we really don't know yet how and when and where it's going to be used," Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon said in an interview on Monday. Democratic states object As the Trump administration has encouraged states to use SAVE, the Justice Department has also demanded states provide the department with unredacted copies of their voter rolls. The Trump administration has previously confirmed the Justice Department is sharing voter information with Homeland Security. The Justice Department has sued six, mostly Democratic, states for refusing to turn over the data. Those lawsuits remain pending. On Monday, 12 state secretaries of state submitted a 29-page public comment, in response to SAVE's Federal Register notice, criticizing the overhaul. The secretaries wrote that while Homeland Security claims the changes make the program an effective tool for verifying voters, the modifications are "likely to degrade, not enhance" states' efforts to ensure free, fair and secure elections. "What the modified system will do … is allow the federal government to capture sensitive data on hundreds of millions of voters nationwide and distribute that information as it sees fit," the secretaries wrote. The secretaries of state of California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington signed on to the comment. The settlement agreement purports to make this year's changes to SAVE legally binding. The agreement asks that a federal court retain jurisdiction over the case for 20 years for the purposes of enforcing it — a move that in theory could make it harder for a future Democratic president to reverse the changes to SAVE. But Becker, of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he doesn't expect the settlement agreement would make it more difficult for a future administration to undo the overhaul. "Should a different administration come in that disagrees with this approach," Becker said, "I would expect that they would almost certainly completely change how the system operates and how the states can access it and what data the federal government procures." Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Robin Opsahl contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org. Stay informed, stay inspired! 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