California will cancel 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses that had been issued to immigrants after officials said they extended beyond the date the drivers were allowed to work in the country — a violation of state law.
California requires driver’s licenses and work permits to have the same expiration dates, officials said. Notices were sent out on Nov. 6 to affected drivers warning their licenses would expire in 60 days.
The move comes amid an ongoing clash between the Trump administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom over California’s non-domiciled commercial driver’s licensing program. It also follows a nationwide audit of such programs after officials said a truck driver living in the U.S. illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a written statement.
State officials, however, said the drivers were not “illegal immigrants” and that they were authorized to work in the country by the federal government.
“Once again, Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his dear leader,” said Brandon Richards, a Newsom spokesman.
California is one of 19 states, in addition to Washington, D.C., that issues driving licenses to immigrants without legal status. Doing so allows people to work and travel safely, immigrant rights advocates argue.
But California — along with six other states, including Texas — came under scrutiny after an audit conducted by the Department of Transportation’s Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency responsible for preventing commercial motor vehicle-related deaths and injuries.
That audit found irregularities in the issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses.
Duffy said the audit found 25% of the licenses issued in California violated federal rules, including by extending well beyond an individual’s work permit end date.
In October, following the audit, Duffy withheld more than $40 million in transportation grants and claimed California was not only continuing to issue commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants living in the country illegally, but was also not enforcing new English language requirements for truckers.
Officials have refuted Duffy’s claims and said the state has complied with federal laws and regulations. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles said on its website that it was not issuing or renewing non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses as of Sept. 29.
Proposed new federal rules that would include mandatory federal immigration status checks, limiting the duration of the license and limiting eligibility to certain immigration visas, were temporarily put on hold by a federal appeals court this week.
The ruling provided relief for thousands of immigrants who were at risk of losing their licenses.
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