{"id":117712,"date":"2026-01-02T19:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/117712\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T19:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:10:07","slug":"california-pauses-17000-cdl-revocations-after-trucker-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/117712\/","title":{"rendered":"California Pauses 17,000 CDL Revocations After Trucker Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

California has delayed its revocation<\/a> of more than 17,000 non-domiciled commercial driver\u2019s licenses (CDLs) held by migrants for additional 60 days, furthering the state\u2019s ongoing feud with the Trump administration over its national crackdown<\/a> on trucking compliance.<\/p>\n

According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), affected drivers will be receiving letters shortly, informing them of the 60-day extension. The state initially set to terminate the CDLs on Jan. 5, but the compliance deadline will now last through March 6.<\/p>\n

More from Sourcing Journal<\/p>\n

California\u2019s delay could enable non-domiciled truck drivers to retake CDL tests and take additional steps necessary to remain legal.<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to X to chide Governor Gavin Newsom over the decision, repeating a previous warning that the Department of Transportation (DOT) would cut nearly $160 million in federal funding if the state did not adhere to the adhere to the federally administered deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cGavin Newsom is lying. The deadline to revoke illegally issued, unvetted foreign trucker licenses is still January 5,\u201d said Duffy in the social media post. \u201cCalifornia does NOT have an \u2018extension\u2019 to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

California is currently suing the DOT over the withholding of another $33 million in federal funds related to the state\u2019s failure to enforce national English-language proficiency (ELP) rules<\/a>. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at enforcing federal English-language proficiency standards, making it a central theme of the administration\u2019s trucking crackdown.<\/p>\n

Many truckers argue that CDLs are often too easy for non-citizens to attain, and that a lack of ELP enforcement poses safety risks on the road.<\/p>\n

Last month, the California DMV sent notices to 17,299 CLD holders notifying them that these licenses would be canceled after records showed mismatches between the license expiration dates and the drivers\u2019 work authorization or lawful presence documentation.<\/p>\n

But the about-face followed a recent class-action lawsuit from the Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the Asian Law Caucus on behalf of the California drivers.<\/p>\n

Roughly 150,000 Punjabi Sikhs work in trucking, with the North American Punjabi Truckers Association estimating that the Sikh workforce makes up about 40 percent of truck driving on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

That suit alleges that the DMV failed to offer proper recourse for affected drivers, refused to renew or issue new CDLs and violated their due process rights. The groups also argue that many of the targeted drivers may still qualify for their licenses.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs asked the Alameda County Superior Court to pause the license cancellations.<\/p>\n

The DOT had conducted a nationwide audit<\/a> into non-domiciled CDL holders over the summer, finding that many commercial licenses issued to immigrant drivers were set to expire long past the duration of immigrant truckers\u2019 legal stay in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Trucking compliance and safety garnered national attention after a fatal trucking accident<\/a> on a Florida highway in August. Undocumented Indian national Harjinder Singh got into a crash that killed a family three people as he attempted to execute an illegal U-turn. Singh obtained a full-term CDL in Washington State in July 2023 before receiving a non-domiciled CDL in California 12 months later, despite entering the U.S. illegally in 2018. Washington concluded in December that it erred in granting Singh the license.<\/p>\n

As for California, the state says it is currently working with representatives of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to resolve their concerns with the DMV\u2019s CDL licensing process.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommercial drivers are an important part of our economy\u2014our supply chains don\u2019t move, and our communities don\u2019t stay connected without them,\u201d said California DMV director Steve Gordon. \u201cWe are hopeful that our collaboration with the federal government will give FMCSA confidence in our updated processes to allow California to promptly resume issuance of nondomiciled commercial driver\u2019s licenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

In total, the DOT has flagged eight states for being non-compliant with CDL regulations, including California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the DOT unveiled more than $118 million in grants to strengthen highway safety, enhance commercial vehicle enforcement and provide training for military veterans entering the trucking industry.<\/p>\n

The department is pouring $71.6 million into \u201chigh priority\u201d grants that support state and local enforcement efforts to reduce commercial motor vehicle-related crashes via safety data improvement projects, public awareness campaigns and the deployment of new technology to ensure trucking safety compliance.<\/p>\n

Another $43.8 million in funds will go to federal and state agencies to improve CDL programs. These agencies can use the grants to strengthen compliance oversight, provide training to prevent the masking of driving violations, and implement solutions that improve the timeliness of conviction processing between courts and state systems.<\/p>\n

The final $3.4 million is reserved for a commercial driver safety training program specifically for current and former members of the U.S. Armed Forces, including National Guard and reservists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California has delayed its revocation of more than 17,000 non-domiciled commercial driver\u2019s licenses (CDLs) held by migrants for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,8893,8081,62547,1059,457,7384,7121,15661,8154],"class_list":["post-117712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cdl","tag-commercial-drivers-licenses","tag-compliance-deadline","tag-dmv","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-harjinder-singh","tag-sean-duffy","tag-the-trump-administration","tag-truck-drivers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}