In summary
California lawmakers are holding up money the Newsom administration requested for a nationwide driver license database over concerns that the information could lead to deportations.
The California Legislature wants to stall plans to share information about California drivers — including more than 1 million immigrant license holders who lack federal authorization to live in the U.S. — with a little-known nonprofit agency made up of motor vehicle administrators across the nation.
The Assembly and Senate’s budget agreement, released Thursday night, withholds $55 million in funding for the California Department of Motor Vehicles to link to a database that would begin fulfilling requests for information from other states about California drivers early next year.
The governor’s office and DMV want to share that information with the State-to-State system and SPEX platform, which lets states check for duplicate licenses and is operated by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.
Because the system records the last five digits of a driver’s Social Security number and uses a placeholder such as “99999” for people without one, opponents of the plan warned it could easily flag drivers who lack a Social Security number.
Immigrant advocates worry the upload could leave undocumented Californians vulnerable to deportation if the information goes to Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Californians are eligible to obtain a standard driver’s license regardless of their immigration status under a 2014 law known as Assembly Bill 60.
State officials say the data sharing is needed to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, which sets requirements for accepting state identification at federal facilities such as airports.
In response to the Legislature’s budget proposal, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson encouraged people who lack federal authorization to live in the U.S. to leave the country.
The Senate released its budget proposal Tuesday evening, and the funding for the DMV’s State-to-State Verification program was not included. The Legislature must adopt a budget by June 15 but has until June 30 to negotiate budget details with the governor.
Leaving out the $55 million from the state budget would not completely kill the DMV’s plan, advocates said. Budget negotiations between the two houses and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office could continue. Lawmakers could still revive the appropriation through follow-up budget legislation or a separate budget bill.
But it could mean the DMV is unlikely to receive the funding by July 1, the date it had targeted to begin sharing the data, according to Jessie Schmitte, a state policy manager with Alliance San Diego, a community-based human rights organization, which has been tracking the proposal. Nearly 200 organizations signed on to a letter by the coalition in opposition to the DMV data sharing plan. The data sharing plan also attracted protestors to a San Francisco branch of the DMV earlier this month.
Some advocates credited CalMatters with bringing the issue to light in a news story earlier this year.
“As you probably know, a lot of organizations weren’t aware of these conversations until, thankfully, the CalMatters article came out and brought air into this conversation for everybody who has not had a seat at the table,” said Schmitte. “If you were really serious about protecting Californians and doubling down on privacy concerns, you wouldn’t be running away from these conversations.”
The DMV needs more than funding to carry out the plan. State law prohibits the DMV from sharing a Social Security number obtained through the licensing process for most purposes, which means the state needs additional legislation before providing information to the national nonprofit, a step the DMV’s own budget request notes.
The state wants to provide the information to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a nonprofit organization whose governing board is made up of DMV officials from across the country. It would be used to help other states ensure that people don’t simultaneously hold identification documents elsewhere. Advocates worry local officials in those states might pass to the federal government information from the association database on apparent unauthorized immigrants. The association has said its database can’t be searched in bulk or without specific information like name and date of birth.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said discussions about the California DMV funding are ongoing. Staff for two other lawmakers did not respond to a request for information about negotiations.
Newsom’s office referred questions to the Department of Finance. Spokesperson H.D. Palmer said “discussions have been underway and are continuing.”
At this late hour, it seems unlikely a compromise could be reached by the deadline the DMV gave, said Andrea Guerrero, the founding executive director of Alliance San Diego.
“It’s hard to imagine what kind of change could be made while we’re standing at the end of a plank,” she said.
CalMatters reporter Yue Stella Yu contributed to this story.
