- United States
- Md.
- Letter
Enforce Maryland's Data Privacy Act and Stop the MVA-to-ICE Pipeline
To: Sen. Gile, Del. Bagnall Tudball
From: A verified voter in Arnold, MD
October 30
Investigate and enforce Maryland's 2026 Data Privacy Act against the data brokers selling Marylanders' motor vehicle records to federal immigration agencies. The University of Washington Center for Human Rights has documented that Maryland's Motor Vehicle Administration continued sharing driver data with ICE through Nlets even after the Act took effect on July 1, 2026. People have been shot, arrested, and deported because of it.
The pattern is documented in federal court affidavits. ICE agents cruise parking lots, run license plates through MVA data, and make arrests within minutes, without warrants. In nine confirmed cases in 2026 alone, MVA records show Nlets queries immediately preceding immigration arrests. LexisNexis made over 1 million downloads of MVA data in 2025 and holds a contract with ICE. A coalition of immigrant rights and privacy organizations has already asked Attorney General Anthony Brown to act against LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters for violating Maryland law.
Maryland has some of the strongest data privacy protections in the country on paper. The law requires a judicial warrant before any immigration agency can access MVA data, and bars data brokers from selling to agencies that have conducted civil immigration enforcement in the past six months. Those protections mean nothing without enforcement. Investigate these violations, sanction those responsible, and close every pathway through which Marylanders' data is reaching ICE.