In California, the Department of Motor Vehicles said Tuesday it would push back the revocation of 17,000 commercial drivers’ licenses until March, shortly after immigrant advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the state’s licensing approach.
The state’s delay is part of a federal-state standoff over how California is handling eligibility for the licenses, including how it checks a driver’s immigration authorization and whether it is meeting federal conditions tied to the program. A week earlier, immigrant groups filed suit, and California then announced the timing change to allow additional time to determine which drivers who “legally qualify” can keep the licenses, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the state still faced a Jan. 5 deadline and that the federal government could withhold $160 million if California did not meet it. Duffy said he had already withheld $40 million in federal funding, linking the payment pause to California’s enforcement of federal English proficiency requirements for truckers.
Duffy also criticized the state’s implementation, arguing that California lacked any “extension” to keep licenses in place if federal requirements were not being met. In one message posted on X, he said California does NOT have an “extension” to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads.
The Transportation Department’s scrutiny has been intensified since an August truck crash in Florida killed three people after a driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn. The department’s emphasis on eligibility checks has also been tied to audits that found problems under existing rules, including licenses that remained valid after a driver’s authorization to be in the country expired and cases where the state could not show it checked a driver’s immigration status.
California said it would work to satisfy the federal Transportation Department with reforms the state has put in place. The DMV’s director, Steve Gordon, said commercial drivers are important for the economy and that supply chains and local communities depend on them, adding that commercial driving workers help keep connections intact.
The lawsuit filed by the Sikh Coalition and the Asian Law Caucus was aimed at what those groups described as unfair targeting of immigrant truck drivers. The groups said immigrants were being singled out through the licensing process, and the legal director for the Sikh Coalition, Mumeeth Kaur, called the delay “an important step towards alleviating the immediate threat that these drivers are facing to their lives and livelihoods.”
According to the Associated Press report, immigrants make up about 20% of truck drivers overall, but the non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive account for about 5% of commercial driver’s licenses, or about 200,000 drivers. The Transportation Department had also proposed new restrictions on which noncitizens could get a license, but a court put those new rules on hold while the legal challenges continue. Trucking industry groups praised moves they say will keep unqualified drivers off the road, including efforts to address questionable commercial driver’s license schools.