Posted on 04/25/2026 3:19:25 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
New York filed a lawsuit Friday to challenge the federal Transportation Department’s decision to withhold nearly $74 million in highway money because the state refused to revoke nearly 33,000 questionable commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants since an audit uncovered problems last year.
New York joins California in suing over Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s efforts to tighten up the rules for which immigrants can qualify to get a commercial driver’s license and make sure the states are properly enforcing the existing rules.
The federal government declined to comment on the new lawsuit Friday, but officials have been clear about the problems they found with more than half of the 200 licenses they reviewed. Officials said they found significant flaws such as licenses remaining valid long after an immigrant was authorized to be in the country. New York’s computer system defaulted to issuing licenses valid for eight years regardless of how long a driver’s visa remained valid, according to the Transportation Department.
The issue became prominent after an August crash in Florida involving a truck driver who Duffy said shouldn’t have ever had a license performing an illegal U-turn that killed three people. California has lost $200 million over concerns about its non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses and whether it is enforcing English language requirements for truckers. Several other states — including Pennsylvania, Minnesota and North Carolina — have been warned they are at risk of losing funding.
But most states have either complied or remain in negotiations with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The federal government has reviewed records related to these non-domiciled CDLs in every state.
New York officials say this is ‘political payback’
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state believes it properly followed all the rules for commercial licenses that were in...
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
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Are t CDLs a federal thing?
The question is why would states take the side of the illegals and are CDL’s a federal thing.
States take the side of illegals because illegals can be relied on to vote illegally and they’ll vote in their interests, which are granted by Democrats.
No, CDL’s are not federal. But because highway funds are issued from the federal coffers the feds get to dictate all sorts of things the feds want but the states aren’t interested in. In general, I find this problematic at best. Really bad, at worst. The feds have at various times held up funds because they didn’t like the format, size and font of street signs insisting they all be changed at the cost of a city’s entire budget. At other times they insist that states enforce laws like the proper wearing of seatbelts resulting in very intrusive policing in order to keep the funds flowing. But in the case of illegals with CDLs I’m in favor but I wish they’d find some other mechanism of enforcement. Controlling the funding has always been the first go-to since it’s easy and can be done by just one man in the federal system. Finding another solution would involve working with the DOJ and possibly other departments which instantly makes the process unwieldy.
“They are openly taking the side of the illegals”
…then they should “openly” be fined and jailed.
“ From what I have seen, the Several States haven’t offered up full cooperation with the Feds. They are openly taking the side of the illegals. Why would they do that?”
If one starts with the premise that the democrat party/leftist organizations are basically criminal enterprises seeking to loot government treasuries everything they do makes sense.
Here’s the rub - neither Mexico or the US requires drivers with licenses from their respective countries to be able to speak the language, to cross into each other’s country, if carrying legal loads of goods, but Mexico does all their training and testing in Spanish, so it is assumed that when they issue a license, the person speaks their language.
If you speak another language and can’t pass their training/testing, you don’t get a license.
Mexico also requires valid ID to vote.
Duffy should apply this policy to ALL states who don’t require English proficiency for CDL’s. Failing that, those drivers should be banned from interstate commerce.
And companies hiring them should be HEAVILY penalized.
Overall, the policy wouldn’t be much different from the threat to withhold federal highway funds from states refusing to enforce the infamous “double nickel” speed limit in the 70’s.
Albany won’t be deterred by a measly $73 mil dollar hit.
Insurers shouldn’t get off scot-free, either.
The federal interest in commercial driviers licenses comes from the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986.
Mostly, it centers around interstate commerce. Instead of requiring commercial truck drivers to have commercial licenses from each state they travel through, this act standardized the safety requirements for interstate truckers and allowed CDL's issued in one state to be recognized in all 50 states.
The states issue the licenses after recipients pass a federally standardized test that is administered locally in each state. The federal enforcement of the states' adherence to safety and fitness standards is the withholding of federal highway funds.
-PJ
Seriously? This is a full throated shibboleth from the Democrat/Communists. "There is only one answer to the question of chaos, Revolution."
The question of holding back grant money for beligerant and unlawful behavior shouldn’t even be an issue.
You want to go your own way?
Do it on your own money.
The fight should be a winner for Americans. The government should keep those bass turds off of all national highways. Arrest and deport all of those they catch breaking federal law. It’s about time AMERICANS KICK THE POLITICIANS IN THE ASS AND TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY FROM THAT SCUM. Political scum have gone full retarded rogue. Especially the crotch rot on the far left.
FNY it’s a third world city anyway.
“Why would they do that?”
Money and backing the H2B visa which gets their feet in the doors.
wy69
Aside from the danger, what about all these jobs that should be going to Americans. We need the jobs.
Plus all the money that they send out of the country. This is an insane policy.
There is no defending it.
Just like when the Federal government withheld funds if states did not raise the drinking age to 21?
Or influential business decided if a locality does not conform we will punish them (Arizona losing SuperBowl if don’t recognize MLK Day, Atlanta losing all star game due to passing voting rights legislation after 2020 debacle)
Common sense application of public safety is eliminated in US today. This is creating a situation ripe for ultimate control of govt to be mandated by the people as the condition matastizes (according to plan).
Don’t see why there should be any questions on this ruling. It’s almost like a certain portion of highway safety officials coudn’t care less about safety. In that case, there should be some firings. When somebody driving a big rig makes a mistake and someone else dies for it, this is a serious thing. Especially so if the guilty one was a CDL holder.
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