California Immigrant Licenses: California has taken a huge step by canceling 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses that were earlier given to immigrants. The state made this move after a review showed that many licenses had expiration dates that did not match the time immigrants were allowed to stay legally in the United States.
The decision comes during strong pressure from the federal government and after a deadly accident in Florida in August, where an undocumented truck driver made an illegal turn that caused three deaths.
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Duffy Blames California
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the state’s move is basically “an admission” that California “acted improperly.” He said the state had defended its system for years, but an audit showed that thousands of licenses were issued without following the rule that the license must expire on the same date a driver’s immigration status ends. Duffy strongly blamed the state and said, “Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed,” adding that he will keep pushing to make sure “all undocumented migrants” stay off trucks and school buses.
His comments grew louder after several deadly accidents in Texas, Alabama, and California that involved truckers without legal status.
California Pushes Back
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office quickly answered the criticism and said all the drivers who lost their licenses had valid work permits from the federal government. The state explained that the issue came from a technical rule. The law says a license must expire “on or before” the date that the driver’s legal status ends on the DMV record. Newsom’s spokesman Brandon Richards pushed back against Duffy and sad he was “spreading falsehoods’ to push a political story.
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California officials also said the state always followed Department of Homeland Security guidelines when it handled these licenses.
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Duffy has also taken strict action by holding back $40 million in federal money meant for California. He said the state failed to follow English-\ language rules for truck drivers. He also warned that California could lose another $160 million if it does not cancel every license that the audit flagged.
The federal government Also announced new rules in September that make it harder for immigrants to get commercial licenses. Under these rules, only people with H-2A, H-2B or E-2 visas can get a business-related license and even then it can only last for one year. The rule will not apply to the past but this still means only 10,000 out of 200,000 foreign commercial drivers would qualify under the new system.
Errors in License Dates
Duffy said that an audit of 145 licenses found that one-quarter of them were issued incorrectly. Some of the licenses were still valid years after the driver’s work permit had already expired. California answered these claims by saying the state followed the DHS instructions in every part of the process and the mistakes were linked to date matching, not to bad intentions.
