‘National Emergency’: Trump Closes Loophole Allowing Illegal Aliens to Drive Commercial Trucks After Tragic Accidents

Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to include comments from Secretary Sean Duffy’s press conference.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced a plan Friday to prevent illegal aliens from driving commercial trucks in the United States.

“The process for issuing [commercial drivers’ licenses] is absolutely 100% broken,” Duffy said at a press conference. “It has become a threat to public safety, and it is a national emergency that requires action right now.”

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 combination of a catastrophic failure of states to follow the law and a broken system has created an imminent hazard to American travelers,” Duffy said. “Nowhere in the country have we found a more egregious licensing situation than in the state of California.”

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.

“It shows a reckless disregard for safety in California, and they should be ashamed of themselves,” Duffy said. “So, California has 30 days to fix this.”

“And by the way, we all know this, but if you get a CDL [commercial driver’s license] in California, you don’t stay in California,” he continued. “You can drive nationwide. And so, those California licensees are driving on roads in every single state in this country, and again, putting American families, American drivers at risk because of the bad action in California.”

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. 

In response to a question from The Daily Signal, Duffy said he is not playing politics, but is treating red and blue states the same.

“You’ll note on this list, there’s Republican-led states and Democrat-led states,” he said. “We are going to give the other states time to come into compliance. But we’ve seen the most egregious action from California, and again, that’s why we’ve taken this action with California. But if other states don’t come into compliance, give us their plan for compliance, we’ll have the same actions with every state.”

The rule is not retroactive, but Duffy says he is looking into ways to change that.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us at FMCSA [the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration] to ensure the integrity of each of the states’ state driver’s licensing agency,” Duffy said, “and so, there will be additional oversight to make sure we have 100% confidence that their systems are compliant.”

Duffy says he is confident the rule change won’t disrupt the supply chain.

“With what we’ve seen, we have enough truckers to meet the demand in the industry,” Duffy said.

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