California revokes 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants
California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants after discovering that drivers had passed their expiration dates when they were legally allowed to be in the United States, state officials said Wednesday.
The announcement comes after harsh criticism from the Trump administration for California and other states illegally licensing people in the country. The issue came to public attention in August, when a truck driver without a permit to be in the United States made an illegal U-turn in Florida, causing a crash. killing three people.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that California’s action to revoke those licenses is an admission that the state acted improperly despite previously defending licensing standards. California launched an investigation into Duffy’s commercial driver’s licenses after she raised concerns.
“After claiming for weeks that they had done nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California were caught red-handed. Now that we have exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued truck 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 they have removed all illegal immigrants from behind the wheels of semi-trucks and school buses.”
Newsom’s office said each of the drivers whose licenses were revoked had valid work permits from the federal government. At first, his office refused to disclose the exact reason the licenses were revoked, saying only that the licenses violated state law. His office later revealed, as reported to the DMV, that the state law he was referring to was one that required licenses to expire on or before a person’s legal status in the United States ended.
Still, Newsom’s spokesman, Brandon Richards, hit back at Duffy with a statement.
“Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy once again fails to share the truth, spreading easily disproven lies in a sad and desperate attempt to please his beloved leader,” Richards said.
Fatal truck crashes in Texas and Alabama earlier this year also highlight questions about these licenses. A. fiery California crash The incident that killed three people last month involved a truck driver who was in the country illegally, further raising concerns.
Previously Duffy introduced new restrictions that immigrants may be eligible to obtain a commercial driver’s license. He said earlier this fall that California and five other states were improperly issuing commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens, but that California was the only state Duffy sued because it was the first state where the audit was completed. Inspections in other states have been delayed by the government shutdown, but the Department of Transportation is urging everyone to tighten their standards.
duffy canceled $40 million in federal funding as California says it does not implement English language requirements for truckers and reiterated Wednesday that he will receive another $160 million from the state on these improperly issued licenses if they do not invalidate all illegal licenses and address all concerns. However, canceling these licenses is part of the state’s harmonization efforts.
New rules for commercial driver’s licenses that Duffy announced in September make them extremely difficult to obtain for immigrants because only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible. States will also have to verify the applicant’s immigration status against a federal database. Licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires earlier.
Under the new rules, only 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens with commercial licenses will qualify for those licenses, and that will only apply to drivers with H-2a, H-2b or E-2 visas. H-2a is for temporary agricultural workers, H-2b is for temporary non-agricultural workers, and E-2 is for individuals who have made significant investments in a business in the United States. But the rules won’t be applied retroactively, so those 190,000 drivers will be allowed to keep their commercial driver’s licenses at least until it’s time to renew them.
These new requirements did not exist at the time the 17,000 California licenses were issued. However, these drivers were notified that their licenses would expire in 60 days.
In September, inspectors found that a quarter of the 145 licenses they reviewed in California should not have been issued, Duffy said. He cited four California driver’s licenses that remain valid after the driver’s work permit has expired (sometimes years later).
Newsom’s office said the state is following guidance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on issuing these licenses to noncitizens.
___
Associated Press writer Sophie Austin contributed to this report from Sacramento, California.
