By Michael Capuano, Esq.
FAIR
- Origin of the Issue: The States Giving Licenses to Dangerous Illegal Aliens
For better or worse, driving and access to a car are essential features of virtually all daily life in America.[1] This includes millions of illegal aliens living here in violation of our immigration laws who make use of cars for their daily needs, whether or not they hold valid driver’s licenses. The proliferation of illegal aliens on American roads has forced lawmakers at the state and federal level to grapple with an issue that, ultimately, should not be occurring in the first place.
As many state DMVs (and their counterparts) are happy to note, driving is a privilege, not a right. Ordinary driver’s licenses, unlike passports, are issued by individual states and subject to the conditions set by those states rather than being governed by federal law.[2] Because of this, the conditions of receiving and maintaining a license vary widely between states. In the least restrictive state, South Dakota, some drivers younger than 15 can receive restricted licenses, while New Jersey limits licenses to those 17 and older only.[3] States also set different requirements for removing restrictions on licenses.
However, all states’ licenses do conform to the design standards set by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).[4] The REAL ID Act of 2005, which finally came into effect in May 2025 after an exorbitant 20-year wait, also sets standards for driver’s licenses and ID cards.[5] It requires individuals obtaining a REAL ID-compliant license to show proof of their Social Security Number (SSN) and lawful presence in the U.S. in addition to other normal documentation, excluding illegal aliens from REAL ID. All states and territories now issue REAL ID licenses and ID cards, which carry an identifiable star marking showing that acceptable documentation was provided. Federal agencies no longer accept identification that does not meet this standard for the purposes of boarding aircraft or entering federal facilities.[6]
In a growing number of states, the anti-borders lobby has managed to get laws enacted that explicitly allow illegal aliens to receive driver’s licenses. FAIR has extensively documented the broader fight over driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, which before 1993 was a legal gray area.[7] That year, California banned individuals without SSNs (including most illegal aliens) from applying for licenses, while Washington passed a law explicitly allowing them.[8] Since then, California has recanted and a number of other states have also given in to the anti-borders lobby on the license issue. As of the end of 2025, 19 states and the District of Columbia allow residents of the state to obtain licenses irrespective of citizenship or legal status, including illegal aliens.[9] Uptake is significant: one study found that total bus ridership dropped by almost 8 percent in Orange County, California post-2015 because many illegal alien bus riders could now obtain driver’s licenses.[10]
Figure 1: States (and DC) offering driver’s licenses to illegal aliens as of 2025. Source: NCSL[11]
Thankfully for law enforcement, the REAL ID Act now makes these licenses for immigration lawbreakers easy to distinguish. Non-REAL ID compliant licenses must be indicated as such, so states that continue to issue them (for illegal aliens or others who don’t meet REAL ID’s requirements) mark the license to indicate noncompliance. This is generally done using wording like e.g. “NOT FOR FEDERAL PURPOSES” or “FEDERAL LIMITS APPLY” in place of the REAL ID star on the license. Two states, Connecticut and Delaware, even issue “driving-only” licenses that are exclusively for illegal aliens and are not valid even for state-level identification purposes.[12]
Figure 2: REAL ID-compliant and noncompliant licenses. Source: California DMV
While not all noncompliant driver’s licenses are issued to illegal aliens, all valid licenses issued to illegal aliens will be noncompliant with REAL ID.[13] Anyone can tell with just a glance at a license if a driver has failed to provide proof of legal status in the U.S. This provides law enforcement nationwide with, at the very least, an indication that a particular driver’s immigration status is worthy of further scrutiny. This is exactly what the situation the anti-borders lobby who fought REAL ID wanted to avoid.
- How Pro-Enforcement States Are Fighting Back
Law enforcement is rightfully interested in the problem of illegal aliens driving because of the significant risks they pose to themselves and to others on the road. The last few years in particular have seen a litany of horrific crashes caused by illegal alien drivers, both private and commercial. FAIR has covered many prominent cases of criminal illegal alien drivers, a disastrous trend that has taken many innocent lives and attracted nationwide attention and action from policymakers.[14] People who have ignored the most basic aspect of our nation’s laws by entering illegally cannot possibly be trusted with a car, truck or (even worse) an 18-wheeler that so easily puts lives at risk. While taking their licenses can’t stop all deadly driving incidents, it cuts down on the permissive attitude to illegal aliens’ transgressions that causes many incidents in the first place.
Several states have now placed the tools to directly confiscate illegal aliens’ licenses in law enforcement’s hands. Florida, for example, passed SB 1718 in 2023, which explicitly prohibited illegal aliens from getting Florida driver’s licenses and invalidates the licenses of illegal aliens issued in other states.[15] The next year, it expanded upon that law with HB 1589, which increased penalties for individuals driving without a license; while not exclusively targeting illegal aliens, this by definition applies to all such individuals who drive in Florida.[16] The state maintains a public list of license types which are invalid or potentially invalid because states issue them only, or primarily, to illegal aliens.[17] The aforementioned licenses issued by Connecticut and Delaware solely to illegal alien drivers are all invalid and subject their users to criminal penalties on Florida roads, while other states’ “not for federal purposes”-type licenses are only invalid if their user is in fact an illegal alien.
Three other states have since followed Florida’s lead. Wyoming’s HB 116, Tennessee’s HB 749, and New Hampshire’s HB 506, all passed in 2025, impose some restrictions on out-of-state licenses issued to illegal aliens. Wyoming’s statute, like Florida’s, specifically invalidates licenses from other states that are held by illegal aliens and establishes criminal penalties for driving without a valid license in this manner.[18] Tennessee and New Hampshire’s provisions, however, are currently written so that only license classes exclusively for illegal aliens are invalid in those states.[19] This means that only the driving privilege cards issued by Connecticut and Delaware fall under these states’ invalidity rules, because the other 18 jurisdictions also issue “not for federal purposes”-type licenses with fewer identification requirements to citizens.
These kinds of bills are certainly effective tools to deter illegal aliens from getting behind the wheel, but they are not the only option available. Commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), which interstate truckers hold, are subject to federal regulation but issued by individual states. Some states, like California, routinely issue them to unqualified illegal aliens who can’t even speak English, but other states and the federal government both have the power to arrest and prosecute these unqualified drivers if their CDLs were not properly issued.[20] One joint operation between the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and ICE on I-40 resulted in 70 illegal aliens arrested, including 34 truck drivers, in just 15 hours.[21]
- Full Faith and Credit Does Not Protect Illegals’ Licenses
For citizens accustomed to moving between states without a second thought, the concept of a license being invalidated after crossing into a neighboring state can be hard to grasp. Even those familiar with immigration issues may be surprised, because so much of immigration is exclusively federal and documents issued by the federal government, like for employment authorization, are valid nationwide. However, driver’s licenses are in fact a creature of state law and subject to other states’ laws as well. Enforcement-minded states are well within their rights to protect their citizens by banning illegal aliens’ licenses on their roads.
Much of the confusion stems from Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause. This provision requires states to give “full faith and credit” to the “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings” of other states, with Congress given authority to prescribe how this takes place.[22] What this means in practice is that states will take note of other states’ laws in legal opinions (with no obligation to adopt them as their own). States can, per the Supreme Court, apply their own laws when the individual has enough contact with the state that applying state law is “neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair”.[23] However, once a court issues a judgment, that judgment can be enforced in every state even if it is contrary to other states’ laws.[24]
It is easy to see how the public could logically extend this principle to state-issued documents, but the Clause actually has no effect on most. Fishing, hunting, and gun licenses are well-known to vary significantly between states, but so do marriage licenses, for example. Congress had to use its power under the Clause to pass a specific law extending it to certain types of marriages because states are otherwise under no obligation to recognize marriages that contradict their own public policy.[25] On the other hand, because divorces are often court judgments, they are effective nationwide in that case regardless of other states’ law. Driver’s licenses, like marriage licenses and professional licenses, are firmly in the category of documents that other states can refuse if the state has jurisdiction and the license conflicts with state law. By driving on public roads in a state like Florida, illegal aliens subject themselves to that state’s road laws and invalidate their own licenses.
The emerging situation where many states issue licenses to illegal aliens while others refuse those licenses seems likely to complicate information-sharing between states. In the absence of a national ID besides federal documents with specific purposes (e.g. passports), driver’s licenses are essentially universal and accepted in all states as a matter of courtesy and convenience. Because driver’s licenses are the most common form of ID, an elaborate infrastructure has been established to share driving records and penalties and prevent multiple licenses. These include interstate compacts like the Driver’s License Compact and a variety of other programs operated by state agencies and law enforcement nonprofits.[26]
How these systems will deal with the conflict between state laws on illegal aliens has yet to be tested. 46 of the 50 states are members of the Driver’s License Compact, through which states share information on license suspensions and both minor and serious moving violations.[27] Illegal alien drivers using “valid” out-of-state licenses can now be convicted of driving without a license in several states, especially Florida and Wyoming (both Compact members). It remains to be seen whether the issuing states will accept these convictions for licensing purposes. If they do not, the reciprocity underlying the Compact may be directly threatened.
Overall, states are well within their rights to protect citizens on their roads from the dangers of illegal alien drivers. Many Americans have literally suffered and died as a consequence of open-borders states allowing immigration violators free rein on their roads. Not recognizing illegals’ licenses presents new issues for inter-state cooperation, but it is better than accepting a status quo that makes illegal presence easy for lawbreakers and puts the broader public at risk. States do have the power to fight back against the “sanctuary” movement, and keeping America’s rite of passage American is a visible, commendable, and fully legal step in that direction.
