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A coalition of 22 state AGs – including Jay Jones, the attorney general in Virginia – won a temporary restraining order in a case involving the Trump administration effort to go after immigrant truck drivers.
The administration is trying to strongarm the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators into handing over its database of state-owned records containing the sensitive personal information of 17 million truck drivers, so that it can target the 200,000 immigrants with CDLs.
Sean Duffy, the former reality-TV star who Donald Trump made his Secretary of Transportation, said in a statement that the suit filed by the Democratic AGs is meant to “make it harder for my department to enforce the rules of the road and easier for dangerous illegal immigrant truck drivers to operate a big rig.”
The release from the U.S. Department of Transportation cited 17 fatal trucking accidents in 2025 that involved immigrant CDL drivers; that total represents less than 1 percent of the fatal trucking accidents reported last year.
“The federal court’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order is an important win for protecting the privacy of millions of commercial drivers,” Jones said in a statement on Friday. “By blocking the U.S. Department of Transportation from acquiring more than 17 million sensitive records and effectively pausing the Department of Homeland Security’s subpoena, the ruling ensures Virginians’ data remains secure and under state control while the legal process continues. The judge’s decision reaffirms long‑standing privacy and governance protections around state-owned driver information.”