President Donald Trump speaks at a reception celebrating Greek Independence Day in the East Room of the White House, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
The state of Maine wants the Trump administration out of its hair regarding the issuance of certain state license plates for federal agents, according to a filing in federal court earlier this week.
In May, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the Pine Tree State and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. The DOJ’s 18-page lawsuit alleges the Bureau of Motor Vehicles has denied requests from federal immigration agents for confidential, undercover license plates.
Bellows, for her part, previously said her agency, which oversees the BMV, would not issue unmarked plates to immigration agents unless she knows those plates “won’t be used for lawless purposes.”
The federal government insists it is being unlawfully singled out – specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration agencies.
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“Maine’s new restrictions on vehicle usage under its confidential plate program essentially barred federal agencies in DHS and DOJ from obtaining confidential plates, while permitting state agencies to continue to receive them,” the lawsuit reads. “Such discrimination is illegal.”
Now, Maine is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit by staking out a concept of “dual sovereignty” federalism based on the jurisprudence of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
The state’s 21-page motion to dismiss begins with a lengthy quote from O’Connor about how the U.S. Constitution “protects us from our own best intentions [by dividing] power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day.”
To hear Maine tell it, the Trump administration’s Supremacy Clause lawsuit forces the court “to confront whether that day has arrived.”
The state’s motion then quickly frames and answers the question.
“Can the federal government compel Maine’s Legislature and executive officials to exercise State police powers—specifically to issue confidential license plates for its fleet of federal law enforcement vehicles?” the lawsuit goes on. “The answer is triply: No.”
The filing argues that the Trump administration’s efforts are a “heavy-handed” attempt “to encroach upon Maine’s sovereignty” and have nothing to do with regulating the kinds of issues Congress could typically legislate.
Under Commerce Clause precedent, the federal government has successfully beaten back state efforts to exert control over nuclear waste disposal, firearms background checks, and gambling. Maine says license plates are nothing like those matters.
“Maine’s vehicle registration regime is a classic state police power, long recognized by the Supreme Court,” the motion goes on. “And yet the federal government seeks to hijack Maine’s vehicle registration regime for the entirely separate purpose of assisting it to camouflage its fleet of law enforcement vehicles.”
Specifically, Maine’s secretary of state updated the application for confidential law enforcement license plates to include an attestation that they would not be used for immigration enforcement.
The state casts the application as “Maine’s legitimate decision not to join in with the federal government to carry out federal policy.”
In the motion, the state notes that Maine law gives Bellows “absolute discretionary authority over” the issuance of license plates.
“Here, the United States is asking the Court to re-write a Maine statute providing the Secretary with sole authority to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to authorize a law enforcement vehicle to operate with a confidential State of Maine license plate,” the motion continues.
Maine argues that its license plate rules do not affect whether immigration agents can perform their jobs.
“Maine has not acted to ‘interrupt’ or stand between the federal government and enforcement of its immigration policies,” the motion continues. “Instead, Maine has merely opted not to contribute the State’s resources toward efforts that assist in disguising a different government’s vehicles from Maine’s citizens.”
The filing goes on like this:
If there is legitimate immigration policy to pursue within State borders, Maine is not stopping the federal government from executing it. It has not attempted to bar federal vehicles from its roads. Nor does Maine subject the federal government to any special requirement before entering the State.
Maine also says the DOJ “incorrectly” claimed that “confidential license plates are ‘otherwise available’ to them under Maine law.”
In other words, the state says the DOJ got the law wrong by arguing that Maine is only subjecting “federal law enforcement” to case-by-case review. Rather, the state notes, all license plates are subject to such review.
“Given the breathtaking scope of the federal government’s demand, it would be difficult to concoct a better example of an attempt to ‘commandeer state executive and legislative officials to implement federal policies’ in violation of the Tenth Amendment,” the motion to dismiss goes on. “The Court should not bless these efforts.”
The post ‘Federal government seeks to hijack’: Maine implores judge to dismiss Trump admin lawsuit after refusing to provide undercover license plates to ICE agents first appeared on Law & Crime.
