A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cast doubt Wednesday on claims that New York's law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses could expose government workers to federal prosecution.

The comments, from members of a three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based appeals court, came during oral arguments on Erie County Clerk Michael Kearns' appeal of a federal judge's decision last year, which dismissed a constitutional challenge to the so-called "Green Light Law" for failing to show that Kearns had suffered any harm as a result of the statute.

Kearns and his attorney, Kenneth Kirby of the Erie County Department of Law, had argued that he would be violating federal law if his office agreed to grant driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Were Kearns forced to carry out the law, which requires a certification that that he would not share individuals' immigration information with federal officials, he would risk the "credible threat" of prosecution under a federal anti-harboring statute, Kearns said.

Linda Fang, who represents New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James in the suit, however, called the argument an "extraordinarily broad construction" of federal statute, a position that was echoed by Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit during Wednesday's arguments.

Chin noted that there had been no threat of prosecution against Kearns and said that any such action by the federal government appeared unlikely.

"It's hard for me to imagine that the federal government would indict a county clerk for complying with state law," he said.

The issue was central to the decision by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford of the Western District of New York to dismiss Kearn's case for lack of standing in November.

Wolford's ruling did not reach the underlying constitutionality of New York's Green Light Law, but instead focused on the supposed threat of criminal prosecution under 8 U.S.C. Section 1324, which makes it a felony for "any person" to "knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place."

Wolford wrote that since New York law bars county clerks and their employees from asking applicants about their immigration status, Kearns wouldn't know whether he was granting a driver's license to an undocumented individual or not.

Other states, she said, currently have laws on the books allowing driver's licenses for undocumented individuals, but the federal government has never prosecuted anyone for complying with such a measure.

"While this fact is not alone dispositive, it supports the conclusion that plaintiff's claimed fear of prosecution is illusory and he has failed to plausibly allege standing," Wolford wrote.

On Wednesday, Judge Susan L. Carney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also questioned whether Kearns, who was acting as an agent of the state, could be treated as a "person subject to liability" under the federal statute.

"My review of the law suggests that courts presume that the term 'person' in a federal statute doesn't include the sovereign, doesn't include the state," Carney said in an exchange with Kirby.

"He can't take any action in his individual capacity that's related to the statute. He issues the license or he doesn't," she said. "That's only as an agent of the state; that's his power."

The panel did not issue a ruling Wednesday.

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