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Illinois state officials have given national rental car companies official notice that immigration enforcement agents using their vehicles are not allowed to swap the rental’s assigned license plates for other plates to disguise the vehicles, and if they do, the rental car companies could be held liable.

According to documents obtained by NBC News via the Freedom of Information Act, the Illinois secretary of state’s office sent letters to at least 19 national car rental headquarters stating that they had received public complaints of immigration agents switching license plates on rented vehicles when Operation Midway Blitz, an extensive government deportation operation, was active in the Chicago area.

The letters were sent to Alamo, Enterprise, Budget, Hertz, Ace and other vehicle rental companies. They did not respond to requests for comment.

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[-] dhork@lemmy.world 13 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I doubt there is any Federal law that authorizes Federal employees to fiddle with license plates for cars that are registered with a state.

If the Federal government wants to do that they have their own system to register cars, independent of any state. If they were substituting State plates with US Government plates, maybe they have a point. But they are simply ignoring local laws, because they are inconvenient. The Supremacy clause doesn't allow that.

[-] gustofwind@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

They may simply be authorized by federal law to do a broad range of things when doing their jobs, like changing license plates, in which case a state cannot stop them.

I’m not sure what specific laws they’re operating under but it’s very likely they can do this unfortunately

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 9 points 22 hours ago

Well, the Feds need to cite those specific laws, then. Illinois is well within their rights to enforce this stuff unless there is a specific Federal law that says otherwise.

[-] gustofwind@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

I’m not a lawyer but my research is showing me that federal agents can operate under the supremacy clause itself to do whatever is necessary and proper in carrying out their federal duties.

A court will have to decide if swapping plates was reasonably necessary to carry out their authorized duties. I’m highly skeptical a court would rule against the Feds because they’d just say swapping plates is important for protecting our agents or some bullshit

[-] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 3 points 17 hours ago

Hiding their agents identities and movements isn't necessary to this job.

[-] gustofwind@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

I agree but a court is going to decide that and they could easily disagree

[-] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 points 12 hours ago

Sure, they can choose to say the words in the constitution don't matter, but doing so makes the only thing giving them any authority useless.

this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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