The U.S. Department of Transportation revealed Wednesday that California has been illegally issuing commercial driver’s licenses to thousands of foreign-born, non-domiciled applicants — putting eighteen-wheelers in the hands of “dangerous foreign drivers,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
The department’s audit found that in California, more than a quarter of the non-domiciled CDLs reviewed were improperly issued. Duffy accused the state of “issuing tens of thousands of these licenses to non-citizens,” calling it a loophole that had grown into a national safety risk.
“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed,” Duffy said. “Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked. This is just the tip of [the] iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”
According to the Transportation Department, holders of the illegal CDLs now have 60 days before their licenses expire. Duffy’s team will oversee California’s internal audit to ensure “every illegally issued license has been revoked” and the failures corrected.
The crackdown came after a deadly crash in Florida involving an Indian national in the U.S. illegally — a tragedy that set off alarms far beyond the Sunshine State. Florida responded by filing suit against California, arguing the state’s reckless licensing practices directly endangered American lives.
“Here in Florida, we can do everything right,” said Attorney General James Uthmeier. “We can back the blue, enforce the law, combat illegal immigration — but we still suffer when Gavin Newsom and liberals on the West Coast allow these illegals in, encourage them, enable them to get these driver’s licenses, and then they cross the country and ultimately take lives.”
It was, in the end, a story about borders without lines — and the tragic cost when states forget where safety ends and politics begins.
