California revokes 17,000 driver's licences: Here's why

California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licences given to immigrants after the Trump administration raised concerns about people in the country illegally and improperly receiving licences to drive a semitruck or a bus.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom said that isn't the reason.

Newsom said the revocations are for violations of state law, but he didn’t provide specifics.

Both the Democratic governor's office and the Republican Trump Administration's Transportation Department agreed that these licenses violated the existing standard that were in place before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently tightened the rules following a nationwide commercial driver’s license audit launched after a driver in the country illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash that killed three people.

Fatal truck crashes in Texas and Alabama earlier this year also highlight questions about these licences.

A fiery California crash involving an illegal immigrant truck driver last month that killed three more people only added to the concerns.

California state transportation officials didn’t immediately respond to questions seeking more details about why these licences are being revoked.

Review of commercial driver's licences

Duffy said Wednesday that California’s action to revoke these licences is an admission that the state had acted improperly even though the state had previously defended its licensing standards.

California launched its review of commercial driver's licences the state had issued after Duffy raised concerns.

Duffy previously imposed new restrictions on which immigrants can qualify for one of these commercial driver's licences.

He said earlier this fall that California and five other states had improperly issued commercial driver's licences to non-citizens, but California is the only state Duffy has taken action against because it was the first one where an audit was completed.

Reviews

The reviews in the other states have been delayed by the government shutdown, but the Transportation Department is urging all of them to tighten up their standards.

Duffy revoked $40 million in federal funding because he said California isn't enforcing English language requirements for truckers, and he reiterated Wednesday that he will take another $160 million from the state over these improperly issued licences if they don't invalidate every illegal licence and address all the concerns.

But revoking these licences is part of the state's effort to comply.

″After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licences are being revoked,” Duffy said. ”This is just the tip of 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.”

Newsom's office said that every one of the drivers whose licences are being revoked had valid work authorizations from the federal government.

“Once again, the Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his dear leader," Newsom's spokesman Brandon Richards said.

New rules

The new rules for commercial driver's licences that Duffy announced in September make getting commercial driver’s licences extremely hard for immigrants because only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible. States will also have to verify an applicant’s immigration status in a federal database.

These licences will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner than that.

Under the new rules, only 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens who have commercial licences would qualify for them, which would only be available to drivers who have an H-2a, H-2b or E-2 visa.

H-2a is for temporary agricultural workers while H-2B is for temporary nonagricultural workers, and E-2 is for people who make substantial investments in a US business.

But the rules won’t be enforced retroactively, so those 190,000 drivers will be allowed to keep their commercial licences at least until they come up for renewal.

Those new requirements were not in place at the time these 17,000 licences were issued. But these drivers were given notices that their licences will expire in 60 days.

Duffy said in September that investigators found that one quarter of the 145 licences they reviewed in California shouldn't have been issued.

He cited four California licences that remained valid after the driver’s work permit expired — sometimes years after.

Newsom's office said the state followed guidance it received from the US Department of Homeland Security about issuing these licences to non-citizens.