A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the Trump administration’s challenge to New York’s Green Light Law, upholding the state’s issuance of driver’s licenses to individuals without requiring proof of legal U.S. residency.
U.S. District Judge Anne M. Nardacci in Albany determined that the Trump administration, which challenged the law under President Donald Trump’s enforcement of immigration laws, failed to back its claims that the state law usurps federal law or that it unlawfully regulates or unlawfully discriminates against the federal government.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit against the state over the law in February, naming Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, as defendants.
“As I said from the start, our laws protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” James said in a statement on Dec. 19. “I will always stand up for New Yorkers and the rule of law.”
Nardacci stated that her job was not to evaluate the desirability of the Green Light Law as a policy matter. Rather, she said in a 23-page opinion, it was to assess whether the Trump administration’s arguments established that the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which grants federal laws precedence over state laws.
The administration, she wrote, has “failed to state such a claim.”
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