ALBANY – New York will no longer give commercial driver’s licenses to non-citizens, following the Trump administration’s tightening of restrictions and threats to withhold $73 million in federal funding from the state.
“Upon specific order from the federal government, New York’s non-domiciled CDL program is indefinitely paused, including renewals,” New York Department of Motor Vehicles spokesperson Walter McClure told Newsday, which first reported the development on Friday.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in December had warned the Empire State that it could lose out on million in federal dollars if it didn’t stop giving licenses to non-citizens.
New York state will no longer give driver’s licenses to non-citizen immigrants, following a tightening of restrictions and threats to withhold funding from the Trump administration. Oklahoma.gov
Duffy cited an audit of 200 New York commercial driver’s licenses by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that found 107 were approved unlawfully.
The US Department of Transportation has been cracking down on liberal states like New York and California for letting migrants behind the wheels of trucks.
The feds revoked DOT guidance allowing non-citizens with federal work authorization to obtain CDLs last year.
The move came around the same time authorities in Oklahoma arrested a man with a New York REAL ID CDL listing his first name as “no name given.” The Department of Homeland Security later identified the man as Anmol Anmol, an Indian national, and said he’d entered the US illegally in 2023.
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He now faces deportation, per DHS.
The issue was hoisted to the forefront in December, when another illegal immigrant from India, Harjinder Singh, was accused of causing a crash that killed three people in Florida.
Singh, it was later revealed, was unable to identify basic road signs during his CDL test in California and could barely understand English.
In a statement, the Trucking Association of New York State said it was supportive of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s move to pause giving migrants CDLs.
“Truck drivers are essential to our state’s economy and the movement of goods nationwide. Ensuring that CDLs are issued through a secure, accountable, and transparent process protects both the motoring public and the tens of thousands of professional drivers who operate responsibly in New York every day,” a rep for the association wrote.