If the request is not granted by Friday, May 22, the DOJ is threatening to take legal action.
MAINE, USA — The U.S. Department of Justice is giving Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey until Friday to rescind a policy preventing federal law enforcement from obtaining undercover license plates in the state.
“It should be immediately withdrawn; otherwise the United States intends to seek judicial relief,” a letter dated May 12, 2026, and signed by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate reads.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows reacted to the letter in an interview with NEWS CENTER Maine Tuesday.
“Trump’s DOJ doesn’t scare me. It’s important to stand up for Mainers, including new Mainers, and it is really important that they not be arresting people in secret,” Bellows said. “We don’t have secret police in a democracy. We’re not giving ICE undercover license plates for civil immigration enforcement.”
Bellows, who oversees the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles and state elections, announced a pause in issuing confidential, undercover license plates back in January. As rumors began to swirl that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was planning to heavily increase enforcement in Maine, Bellows said her office received a request for undercover Maine plates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“These requests in light of rumors of ICE deployment to Maine and abuses of power in Minnesota and elsewhere raise concerns. We have not revoked existing plates but have paused issuance of new plates. We want to be assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes,” she said back in January.
Maine’s BMV has since refused to issue these license plates to federal law enforcement, unless the agencies certify that the registered vehicles will not be used for civil immigration enforcement, according to Attorney General Shumate. During this time, Shumate said the Maine BMV has continued to issue the same plates to state and local law enforcement agencies without the same certification.
Shumate’s letter argues the policy is discriminatory, dangerous for officers, and unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“If federal law enforcement vehicles are readily identifiable, either by a government plate or through a state plate and registration that is subject to public exposure through an information request, then officers, their families, and people under their protection will all be at risk,” he wrote.
Since ICE surges commenced across the country in the past year, the agency has said some of its officers have been targeted with “threats, doxing, and harassment.”
The May 12 letter to Maine AG Aaron Frey demands a response by Friday, May 22 with the assurance, “that this policy has in fact been rescinded and all federal law enforcement are again able to obtain undercover plates in your state on equal terms.”
“Absent such an assurance, the United States reserves all rights,” Shumate wrote.
Bellows said she is not concerned about the threat of a lawsuit or accusations that the Maine BMV’s policies are discriminatory.
“We’ve been issuing license plates to plenty of federal agencies that are not involved in civil immigration enforcement and that are signing our application and pledging not to do that,” she said Tuesday. “I think we will prove that it’s constitutional. If they sue us, we’ll see them in court.”
Bellows is one of five Democratic candidates now running for governor and has boasted about her decision in gubernatorial debates.
She explained more of her rationale in a January 21 interview with NEWS CENTER Maine: “People are being dragged out of their homes, stopped on the street, and detained, and in many cases, those individuals are legally here, either asylum seekers or refugees, new Mainers with legal status, or in many situations, citizens who are Black and brown. People are getting racially profiled and they’re getting kidnapped off the street, and that is absolutely wrong.”
Bellows declined at the time to describe the number of undercover license plates that had been requested.
She said in the January interview, “Unmarked plates are for special operations. Maybe law enforcement is conducting surveillance of a potential drug operation or something that would do harm to Mainers, and so for a long time, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles has had longstanding relationships with law enforcement. We routinely get requests for unmarked plates associated with confidential operations that are legitimate, covert operations.”
The Office of the Maine Attorney General did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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