Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy will announce a plan Friday to prevent illegal aliens from driving commercial trucks.
The announcement comes after an illegal alien truck driver killed three people in a Florida traffic crash while making an illegal U-turn. He apparently was not able to understand the street signs.
California had issued the commercial driver’s license.
The Department of Transportation has issued an emergency interim rule to prohibit noncitizens from being eligible for a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license unless they meet a stricter set of rules.
California has 30 days to comply with the rules or the Department of Transportation will withhold federal highway funds starting at nearly $160 million in the first year and double that in the second year.
The move is in line with President Donald Trump’s April executive order mandating the enforcement of an English-language proficiency requirement for commercial truck drivers.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration launched a nationwide audit in June that uncovered a pattern of states issuing licenses illegally to foreign drivers as well as the fact that even if the current regulatory framework is followed, it can fail.
To get a commercial driver’s license, non-domiciled individuals will now need an employment-based visa and will need to undergo a mandatory federal immigration status check using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system.
The audit found the state that issued the most licenses to ineligible drivers was California.
In California, more than 25% of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses reviewed were improperly issued, the audit found, allowing thousands of potentially unsafe drivers to hit the roads. This includes some with licenses extending as many as four years beyond the expiration date of the aliens’ documentation allowing their lawful presence in the United States.
The Transportation Department highlighted one case in which California gave a driver from Brazil a commercial driver’s license with endorsements to drive a passenger bus and a school bus that was valid for months after his legal presence documentation expired.
As a result, Duffy ordered California to pause the issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses, identify all unexpired non-domiciled licenses that fail to comply with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, and revoke and reissue all noncompliant non-domiciled licenses only if they comply with the new federal requirements.
Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington were also identified as states with licensing patterns not consistent with federal regulations.
