The Justice Department filed lawsuits against sanctuary states Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington on Wednesday over their refusal to grant undercover license plates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. ICE uses the license plates to arrest fugitives, conduct surveillance, investigate missing persons and missing child cases, and carry out abduction investigations involving dangerous actors, according to the lawsuits. If they don’t have the license plates, it compromises their arrests and the safety of the federal officers, who continue to face significant threats. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement, “By denying undercover license plates to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement.” “These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities,” he added. In Washington, the state’s Department of Licensing “began affirmatively denying requests by DHS to obtain and renew undercover license plates and registrations” around October 2025, according to the federal lawsuit. When the state agency received a request for undercover license plates from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), officials responded in January 2026 by “suspending the issuance and renewal of undercover license plates for DHS-affiliated entities for an indeterminate period.” Washington Attorney General Nicholas Brown wrote to the Department of Justice in May that “[t]he Washington State Department of Licensing voluntarily provides hundreds of undercover plates to federal agencies each year,” listing the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Marshals, and the Secret Service while failing to include ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to the lawsuit. Now, the state is “reviewing DHS’s activities” and asking that the agency hand in “all current undercover plates and obtain new registrations for each vehicle,” the lawsuit states. Further, the state is “not permitting renewals of existing undercover plates for any DHS subcomponents.” State officials are also determining whether DHS is in compliance with the “Keep Washington Working Act,” which states that “no state agency, including law enforcement, may use agency funds, facilities, property, equipment, or personnel to investigate, enforce, cooperate with, or assist in the investigation or enforcement of any federal registration or surveillance programs or any other laws, rules, or policies that target Washington residents solely on the basis of race, religion, immigration, or citizenship status, or national or ethnic origin,” according to the lawsuit. Former ICE New York field office deputy director Scott Mechkowski called the Democrat-run state’s actions “a deliberate decision to endanger federal officers and another tactic to doxx ICE.” “Every law enforcement officer in America, DEA, FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals, state and local are entitled to undercover capacity for their safety. No one debates that,” Mechkowski said. He continued: “So explain to me why ICE agents are the only federal law enforcement officers these governors think deserve to be exposed?” The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office told The Daily Wire that it is “reviewing the complaint and will defend the RMV [Registry of Motor Vehicles] policy to the greatest extent possible.” The other accused states didn’t respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.