A Washington state agency, the Department of Licensing, provided Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies with access to private driver’s license and vehicle information, KING 5 said in a report published on Friday, July 11. This is the case even though Washington has laws in place prohibiting local agencies from sharing personal data with the federal government if they’re using it for deportations.
A similar finding was revealed in 2018. After protests against the department sharing personal data with federal agencies, as well as legislative pressure, the Department of Licensing canceled a lot of those agreements.
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KING 5 found that some of these accounts were quietly reinstated, including ones with ICE, Border Patrol and other Homeland Security entities. The news outlet wrote that this has led to a “dramatic” surge in data searches since the election of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on mass deportations.
Federal officials’ use of the Department of Licensing accounts increased by 188% since Trump was elected to a second non-consecutive term in November 2024. ICE’s account,for instance, showed searches for driver and vehicle records went from about 540 in November to 1,600 in May 2025.
The Department of Licensing said in emails to KING 5 that they are following state and federal laws, and attributed the increase in account use to significant variability” in monthly searches and a shift across “two presidential administrations with two different immigration ideologies.”
Jennie Pasquarella, the legal director of a nonprofit representing immigrants called the Clemency Project, expressed her concerns about the reopening of these accounts to KING 5.
“As ICE is ramping up their enforcement actions in our state, the last thing we want is for them to be able to search a treasure trove of information about home addresses,” she stated. “It is critical that we ensure that information is walled off so that people don’t fear accessing it.”
Cell phone surveillance detected at Washington anti-ICE protest
Recently, Straight Arrow News detailed how a device known as an IMSI catcher may have been used to collect people’s information on cell phones at a July 4 protest at a Washington state ICE field office. An IMSI catcher is a cell-site simulator that mimics a cell tower. It can make a connection with cell phones as far as a third of a mile away, and then trick them into revealing their IMSI, or International Mobile Subscriber Identity.
This was discovered because of an analysis of mobile network anomalies detected at the protest site.
Federal law enforcement can only use IMSI catchers without a warrant in “exigent” or “exceptional circumstances,” per a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general from 2023. Circumstances include immediate threats to national security or situations where someone is in serious danger. The inspector general’s report stated that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit and the Secret Service had used the devices for surveillance without getting the proper court approvals first.
Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, previously told SAN using such a device “to identify or track people exercising their First Amendment right to protest would raise grave concerns.”
“There is good reason why courts have held that this invasive technology can only be used in limited circumstances after securing a valid warrant,” Wessler said to SAN. “If evidence were to show these devices being targeted at protesters, the government would have a lot to answer for.”
