Healey administration has barred ICE from getting undercover license plates

Politics admin May 15, 2026 0 Comments

Healey administration has barred ICE from getting undercover license plates

The Trump administration threatened to sue Massachusetts, charging that the Healey administration has refused to issue confidential license plates through the Registry of Motor Vehicles to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

In a letter to Governor Maura Healey on Tuesday, US Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said the RMV won’t issue confidential registration and license plates to ICE officers, while providing them “without restrictions” to other federal and state agencies. Shumate said the RMV is issuing them to Homeland Security Investigations,but only after they certify that the vehicles will only be used in criminal investigations.

“This discriminatory policy is not only deeply dangerous as a matter of public safety but also blatantly unlawful as a matter of constitutional law,” Shumate wrote. “It should be immediately withdrawn; otherwise, the United States intends to seek judicial relief.”

Jacqueline Manning, a Healey spokesperson, said the administration will not allow state resources to be used “to help ICE operate in secret while they are violating people’s rights and making us all less safe.”

“Any federal, state, or local agency engaging in legitimate criminal law enforcement work can receive a confidential plate. We all know that’s not what ICE is doing,”Manning said. “This is an agency that can’t and won’t even tell us who they are arresting and why. We are not going to enable their tactics.”

The Trump administration said the RMV’s policy undermines investigations, including probes into “serious federal crimes.” The investigations, Shumate told Healey, often require covert surveillance and undercover activities.

“If federal law enforcement vehicles are readily identifiable, either by a government plate or through a state plate and registration that is subject to public exposure through an information request, then officers, their families, and people under their protection will all be at risk,” Shumate said.

Manning, the Healey spokesperson, said allowing ICE vehicles to have a confidential registration would conceal the identity of the car’s owner in law enforcement and state databases, and could also hinder traffic stops.

ICE can use non-confidential plates, Healey’s office said, which will not risk “doxing” or the disclosure of a federal agent’s identity when driving a vehicle because it only permits state and local law enforcement to see details about the driver and vehicle.

Shumate said the RMV’s policy is unconstitutional. In his letter, he gave the Healey administration until May 22 to rescind the policy and start issuing undercover plates to all federal law enforcement agents.

The warning from the Trump administration sets the stage for another showdown between the president and elected Democrats in Massachusetts.

Trump’s Department of Justice has already filed a lawsuit challenging Boston’s policies of limiting local police’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Healey, who is seeking reelection this year, has also been a vocal critic of the president’s immigration agenda, and has pushed legislation that would ban federal immigration officers from entering churches, schools, courthouses and other sensitive locations.

The latest threat of legal action comes after the Trump administration conducted multiple, large-scale immigration sweeps in Massachusetts over the past year that netted thousands of arrests and prompted advocates to call for restrictions on ICE activity in the state.