US Sues States for Refusing ICE Undercover License Plates (5)

Undercover license plates are the latest front in the fight between blue states and the federal government over immigration enforcement.

The US says some federal law enforcement vehicles, including those used by ICE agents, need such plates to go undetected. The federal government is suing to force Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington state over their refusal to issue them.

“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 Department of Justice press release.

But a spokesperson for Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) said ICE’s policy of operating secretly and without accountability “makes our communities less safe, undermines public trust, and will not be allowed in this state.”

In four substantially similar complaints filed Wednesday, DOJ lawyers asked federal courts to declare the states’ new policies unconstitutional and invalid. The states’ refusal to issue confidential and undercover licenses to federal law enforcement agencies, while continuing the practice for state and local agencies, was discriminatory and violated the supremacy clause’s intergovernmental immunity doctrine, the complaint said.

US attorneys alleged the states implemented the policies as part of their efforts to obstruct federal immigration enforcement efforts. Washington’s policy halted the issuance of undercover plates to all agencies affiliated with the US Department of Homeland Security, while Massachusetts specifically targeted the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies, they said.

Massachusetts is now refusing to issue untraceable plates to all federal agencies, and Maine is requiring federal government applicants for confidential plates to attest that their vehicles won’t be used for civil immigration enforcement unless the use is incidental to or in support of an agency’s authorized criminal investigation function.

The new policies follow ICE’s and CPB’s use of unmarked vehicles to surprise suspected undocumented people and evade protesters, especially in places such as Minneapolis and Chicago. The agencies maintain untraceable license plates are a necessary tool for ensuring their safety while carrying out their duties.

Under the intergovernmental immunity doctrine, states may not enact laws that directly regulate or discriminate against the federal government. By refusing to issue confidential license plates, the states are unlawfully regulating federal law enforcement, the complaint said.

The new policies are discriminatory because there’s “no meaningful distinction between state and local officers engaged in routine criminal enforcement and federal officers engaged in civil immigration enforcement for the purposes of confidential plates,” said the complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Oregon. “Both may require confidential operations” to carry out their enforcement duties.

Additionally, Washington’s “policy introduces substantial, unnecessary, and entirely preventable risks,” the complaint in the Eastern District of Washington said. “It undermines federal security safeguards, conflicts with congressional intent, and weakens Washington’s broader public safety posture.”

The complaint filed in the District of Massachusetts alleges Gov. Maura Healey (D) didn’t hide the state’s reason for its policy—she accused ICE and CBP of engaging in illegitimate law enforcement activities and said her government wouldn’t “enable their tactics.”

Maine’s new policy “recklessly disregards officer safety, public safety, and federal operational needs,” the complaint in the District of Maine said.

The US asked the courts to permanently enjoin the policies.

A spokesperson for Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D) said they are reviewing the complaint and “will defend the RMV policy to the greatest extent possible.” A Healey spokesperson added, that while the state supports providing confidential plates to “law enforcement doing legitimate criminal investigative work,” that’s “not what we are seeing from ICE and its unconstitutional tactics.”

Massachusetts won’t “use state resources to help ICE operate in secret, and without accountability, while refusing to provide basic information about who they are arresting and why,” the Healey spokesperson said.

An Oregon attorney general’s office spokesperson deferred to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, which didn’t immediately respond.

Washington’s attorney general’s office also deferred to the state agency for comments, but provided a copy of a letter Attorney General Nicholas Brown (D) sent to DOJ on May 22, in response to the US’s threat to sue. The federal government misstated the facts and the law, and the state couldn’t be compelled to assist with federal programs, the letter said.

Under “the Tenth Amendment and fundamental principles of federalism, Washington may choose whether to provide State resources” to do so, Brown said in the letter.

The cases are United States v. Washington, E.D. Wash., No. 26-232, complaint filed 5/27/26; United States v. Massachusetts, D. Mass., No. 26-12401, complaint filed 5/27/26;United States v. Oregon, D. Or., No. 26-1060, complaint filed 5/27/26; and United States v. Maine, D. Me., No. 26-275, complaint filed 5/27/26.