Sponsors (5)
The bill trades stronger federal leverage to align state ID policies with immigration priorities and shifted highway funding incentives against significant cuts to state transportation funding, reduced access to driving credentials for undocumented immigrants, and likely federalism and legal disputes.
State governments that refuse to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants would potentially receive larger shares of federal highway funds when other states keep issuing IDs, increasing transportation funding for those states.
State governments would face a federal enforcement lever that pressures them to align driver identification policies with federal immigration priorities.
States that provide IDs to undocumented immigrants would lose 100% of certain federal highway apportionments for the fiscal year, cutting funding for road projects and maintenance and forcing delayed or curtailed transportation improvements.
Undocumented immigrants in states that comply could lose access to legal driving credentials, reducing mobility, employment opportunities, and potentially harming public-safety outcomes.
Conditioning federal highway funds on state immigration-related ID policies uses infrastructure money as a punitive tool and raises federalism and legal challenges about the federal government’s ability to tie funding to state policy choices.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires withholding certain federal highway funds from States that issue driver's licenses or state IDs to aliens unlawfully present, with funds reapportioned to compliant States.
Requires the Secretary of Transportation to withhold certain federal highway apportioned funds from any State that issues driver's licenses or other State identification cards to people who are unlawfully present in the United States. For fiscal year 2023 and each year after, the Secretary must withhold 100% of specific apportioned highway funds from any State with such laws. Withheld funds remain available until the end of the fiscal year; if the State repeals the law before year-end the funds are returned to that State. If not repealed, the withheld funds are redistributed among States that do not allow issuance of IDs to unlawfully present aliens. The provision also defines “identification card” by referring to the federal definition in 18 U.S.C. §1028(d).
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Claudia Tenney · Last progress January 3, 2025