Federal highway funds held hostage to force state immigration enforcement
H.R. 5330 — SAFE Driving Laws Act · Filed by Mary Miller (R-IL) · 25 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 11, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill withholds 50% of federal highway funding from any state that issues driver's licenses to people without proof of U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residence, or that restricts local/state officials from sharing immigration enforcement information with federal authorities. States must comply by 2027 or lose highway money; the federal government will maintain a public database tracking each state's compliance status.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a federal funding penalty (withholding 50% of highway apportionments) designed to coerce state compliance with federal immigration enforcement priorities—specifically driver's license restrictions and mandatory data-sharing with DHS. This is not a direct immigration statute but a conditional-funding leverage tool.
What the text implies
- The data-sharing mandate (subsection b(2)) requires states to permit local/state officials to send immigration enforcement information to DHS, potentially including citizenship/status data on all individuals encountered by state/local agencies, creating a de facto national immigration surveillance infrastructure.
- States that currently issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants (CA, NY, IL, MD, NV, UT, VT, WA, DC) face a binary choice: change state law or lose 50% of federal highway funding—a coercive federalism mechanism that may be challenged as unconstitutional commandeering.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who it affects
The bill restricts citizens' access to driver's licenses based on immigration status and coerces states into sharing personal immigration data with federal authorities, reducing privacy and potentially chilling civic participation. While framed as immigration enforcement, it creates a federal-state funding penalty mechanism that may harm ordinary people's mobility and access to services, and the data-sharing mandate expands surveillance without clear public safety justification.