Judge Freezes Trump Administration's Bid for Truckers' Private Data as Nevada Joins the Fight

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by National Trucking Association President Chris Spear, Acting Labor secretary Keith Sonderling, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, announces the Freedom Haulers initiative on West Executive Avenue between the West Wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 30, 2026 in Washington, DC. The program will allow military veterans to get expedited commercial drivers licenses for trucking careers. The nation faces a shortage of truckers after licenses were stripped from immigrants who failed English language tests. (Credit: Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford put his office into a legal fight over who controls the private records of the nation's commercial truckers — and within days, a federal judge sided, at least temporarily, with his side of it. On Aug. 13, Ford joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia in suing the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the private nonprofit that runs a decades-old license database, arguing federal officials were trying to seize records on roughly 17 million drivers without legal grounds.

By Friday, Aug. 14, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga had granted an emergency administrative stay, ordering the Department of Homeland Security to stand down from a related subpoena for the same driver data until the court rules on a motion to quash it, FreightWaves reported. That hearing is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 20 in Alexandria, Virginia.