DHS official attacks ACLU a day after lawsuit press conference

A Department of Homeland Security official on Saturday released a statement attacking the ACLU after the ACLU filed a lawsuit seeking public records from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles related to communications between the DMV and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Another day, another frivolous and false allegation from the ACLU,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for DHS, in the statement. “Here are the facts: the illegal alien feeding the ACLU this nonsense is a MURDERER. ICE doesn’t need the help of the Nevada DMV to pull license plate information, it’s already available to the agency.”

In response, Athar Haseebullah, the ACLU of Nevada’s executive director, called the ICE statement “insane” and false.

The war of words erupted a day after the ACLU of Nevada announced in a Friday news conference that it has filed a lawsuit against the Nevada DMV.

Haseebullah said Friday that public records requests made by the ACLU to the DMV were initially denied. But after the ACLU sent a demand letter, he said, the DMV released “heavily redacted” and incomplete correspondence showing “suspicious communications” between the DMV and ICE. The two agencies “have seemingly been collaborative,” Haseebullah said.

The statement did not explain why McLaughlin said the ACLU’s source was a murderer, nor did it identify that person.

Haseebullah, responding to the comment from ICE on Saturday, said the statement was bizarre.

“None of what they’re saying makes any sense,” he said. “It’s hard for me to speculate because their statement is so outlandish.”

He added: “How can a public records lawsuit be sourced from a murderer?”

The ACLU of Nevada filed records requests after a person reported to Haseebullah that they had gone to the DMV and then been contacted by ICE, he said. The person said they did not have a criminal history, according to the executive director, who said the lawsuit was based on the records received so far and the failure to turn over all records, not the source.

One record suggests there are Signal group chats between ICE and DMV employees, according to Haseebullah, who added he was not making that allegation “unequivocally.” He said the DMV has denied using Signal chats.

Signal is an app known for end-to-end encryption and messages that disappear.

Haseebullah said, in his view, ICE has not denied that ICE and the DMV have communicated over Signal.

Given that the case is based on the DMV’s records that have been handed over, he said, “labeling a public records lawsuit as frivolous shows a lack of basic aptitude.”

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com. Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.