California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants after discovering expiration dates on when the drivers were allowed to stay in the U.S. legally, state officials said.
The announcement comes after California and other states have been criticized by the Trump administration for illegally issuing licenses to people in the country. The issue was thrust into the public consciousness in August, when a tractor-trailer driver who was not authorized to remain in the United States caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that California has an admission to revoke licenses that the state has violated even though it previously defended its licensing standards. California reviewed commercial driver’s licenses issued after Duffy raised concerns.
“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” Duffy said, referring to the state’s governor. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to push California to prove that they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses.”
Newsom’s office said each of the drivers whose licenses are being revoked has valid work authorization from the federal government. At first, his office refused to reveal the exact reason for revoking the licenses, saying only that they violated state law. Later, his office revealed the state law he was referring to was one that requires a person’s license to expire on or before the end of their legal status in the United States, as reported to the DMV.
Still, Newsom spokesman Brandon Richards shot back at Duffy in a statement.
“Once again, Sean ‘Rules of the Road’ Duffy fails to share the truth,” Richards said.
Fatal truck crashes in Texas and Alabama earlier this year have also highlighted questions about those licenses. A fiery California crash that killed three people last month involved a truck driver in the country illegally, only adding to concerns.
Duffy previously imposed new restrictions on who immigrants could qualify for a commercial driver’s license. He said earlier this fall that California and five other states improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens, but California is the only state Duffy has taken action against because it was the first place the audit was completed. Reviews in other states have been delayed by government shutdowns, but the Department of Transportation is urging them all to tighten their standards.
Duffy canceled $40 million in federal funding because he said California was not enforcing English-language requirements for trucks, and he reiterated Wednesday that if he doesn’t invalidate every illegal license and address all concerns, he will take another $160 million from the state on those improperly issued licenses. But revoking those licenses is part of the state’s compliance efforts.
New rules for commercial driver’s licenses that Duffy announced in September make them extremely difficult for immigrants because only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible. States must also verify the applicant’s immigration status in any federal database. Licenses will be valid for one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner.
Under the new rules, only 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens who hold commercial licenses will qualify for them, which will be available only to drivers who have an H-2A, H-2B or E-2 visa. H-2A is for temporary agricultural workers while H-2B is for temporary non-agricultural workers, and E-2 is for people who make a substantial investment in a US business. But the rules won’t be applied retroactively, so those 190,000 drivers will at least be allowed to keep their commercial licenses until they come up for renewal.
Those new requirements were not in place when California issued 17,000 licenses. But these drivers were given notices that their licenses would expire in 60 days.
Duffy said in September that investigators found that a quarter of the 145 licenses they reviewed in California should not have been issued. He cited four California licenses that remained valid after a driver’s work permit expired — sometimes years later.
Newsom’s office said the state followed guidance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on issuing those licenses to noncitizens.
Associated Press writer Sophie Austin contributed to this report from Sacramento, California.
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