Albuquerque, NM --Today, in the wake of a recent move by the Census Bureau to seek driver’s license records from state motor vehicle divisions in order to collect data on citizenship status, the ACLU of New Mexico and Somos un Pueblo Unido called on Governor Lujan Grisham to protect New Mexicans’ privacy.
Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico, issued the following statement:
“The Trump administration will stop at nothing to further marginalize immigrant families and communities of color. The Census Bureau should drop this shameful attempt to find an end run around the Supreme Court’s ruling blocking the Trump administration from including a citizenship question on the 2020 census and focus instead on ensuring all people are counted. In addition, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham should take immediate steps to ensure that the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division and other state agencies do not share New Mexicans’ private information with the Trump administration. Doing so would be a betrayal of New Mexicans’ privacy and would put immigrant families in harm’s way.”
Marcela Diaz, executive director of Somos un Pueblo Unido, issued the following statement:
“New Mexicans expect the Lujan Grisham administration to stand between them and the federal government’s illegal overreach in requesting direct access to our state databases, including the motor vehicle database. We know this move by the Trump administration is part of a larger effort to undercount and politically marginalize our communities. To ensure that hard-to-count immigrant groups participate in the Census, the state needs to enact standard policies that safeguard our sensitive and private information.”
