ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) — The second Donald Trump administration brought a civil action against New York over provisions in the state’s “Green Light” law, which allows New Yorkers to obtain a driver’s license regardless of immigration status, Trump’s newly sworn-in top prosecutor Pam Bondi announced at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Bondi announced the civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Albany County federal court, at her first press conference in Washington, D.C.
The 2019 Green Light law allows undocumented immigrants in the state to get driver’s licenses and prevents federal immigration authorities from accessing DMV data without a warrant.
“That law is unconstitutional,” she said. “They have a tip-off provision that requires New York’s DMV commissioner to promptly inform any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested their information.”
The complaint, which was not immediately made available on Wednesday afternoon, names as co-defendants: New York Governor Kathy Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James, and DMV Commissioner Mark J.F. Schroeder, Bondi said.
Schroeder was nominated by former Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve as the commissioner of DMV in January of 2019, the same year the Green Light law went into effect.
“They have to start complying with federal law. If they don’t, we will appeal it, and we will win,” Bondi said.
James pushed back against the federal challenge to the state policy on Wednesday evening. “Our state laws, including the Green Light law, protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” she wrote in statement. “I am prepared to defend our laws, just as I always have.”
Bondi, tapped by Trump in November to be the country’s top lawyer, framed the civil enforcement as a companion litigation to a similar case filed last week against the state of Illinois over Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance, which bars city agencies from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement actions.
“We did it to Illinois. Strike one. Strike two is New York, and if you’re a state not complying with federal law? You’re next,” Bondi, who was confirmed last week, said at the D.C. press conference.
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, called the New York lawsuit “an affront to the 10th Amendment, which clearly allows states to make and follow their own laws.”
“It might work when Trump bullies Mayor Eric Adams, but he has a much poorer track record against fighters for the public good like our NYS Attorney General Leticia James — who has overwhelmingly defeated Trump’s previous attacks on New York,” he wrote Wednesday evening.
The New York Civil Liberties Union also quickly condemned the lawsuit on Wednesday, affirming that state officials are under no obligation to give resources to enable the Trump administration’s “cruel and destructive deportation plans.”
“This filing is yet another Trump administration attempt to shamelessly weaponize the Department of Justice to intimidate political opponents and exert improper political pressure,” NYCLU director Molly Biklen wrote in a statement. “It seeks to punish states for enacting state policies with which it disagrees. Attorney General Bondi should know, but more likely doesn’t care, that the purported charges represent a gross intrusion into New York’s constitutional right to legislate in areas traditionally within its concern.”
Hochul is reportedly engaged in negotiations with Trump about the future of the state’s newly launched congestion pricing program. Trump has signaled openness to a deal to terminate the contentious tolling program but include a major multibillion-dollar federal investment in the city’s transportation infrastructure.
James, a longtime legal foe of Trump, led a lawsuit from 19 Democratic state attorneys general against the Trump administration last Friday over unauthorized access to Treasury Department computer servers by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Bondi has a long history with the president. During his first administration, she served as White House counsel — defending Trump during his first impeachment trial. She later worked as a principal legal adviser for the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-affiliated research and advocacy organization.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is expected to meet with Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan on Thursday to discuss the sanctuary city’s cooperation with the administration’s plans for mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
“Either he comes to the table or we go around him,” Homan threatened during an appearance on New York City AM talk radio earlier in the week.