The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) continues conducting its nationwide audit of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued by state licensing agencies. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy continues to allege that states are illegally issuing CDLs to foreign drivers.

Duffy revealed preliminary findings of FMCSA’s audit of Colorado on December 22 and New York on December 12. He called on Colorado to immediately purge illegally issued licenses or risk losing $24 million in federal highway funds.

FMCSA’s audit concluded that roughly 22% of Colorado non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) were issued illegally. Many of those licenses were given to Mexican nationals, which is explicitly prohibited under federal regulations. According to the DOT, Colorado’s actions stem from a 2016 statewide policy decision to disregard federal law and issue trucking licenses to ineligible Mexican citizens.

FMCSA’s audit of New York’s non-domiciled CDL issuance practices found numerous failures by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), including the following: 

Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law—a failure rate of over 53%.

The DMV’s systems defaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired.

New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership,” Duffy said in a DOT statement. “If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding.”

New York must immediately revoke licenses held by improperly licensed foreign drivers or risk losing approximately $73 million in federal highway funding, according to DOT.

DOT is demanding that New York take the following steps:

Immediately pause the issuance of all new, renewed, transferred, or upgraded non-domiciled CDLs or commercial learner’s permits (CLPs).

Conduct a comprehensive internal audit to identify every non-domiciled license that was issued in violation of federal regulations and the policies, practices, and procedures that allowed for the issuance of non-compliant licenses. 

Immediately revoke all unexpired, noncompliant licenses and remove unqualified drivers from the road.

On September 29, the FMCSA issued an interim final rule barring state licensing agencies (SDLAs) from issuing CDLs or CLPs to drivers domiciled in a foreign jurisdiction without proper documentation.

The interim final rule restricts the issuance of non-domiciled CLPs and CDLs to individuals maintaining lawful immigration status in the United States in specific employment-based non-immigrant categories.

It requires non-citizen applicants (except for lawful permanent residents) to provide an unexpired foreign passport and an unexpired Form I-94/I-94A (Arrival/Departure Record) indicating a specific type of employment-based nonimmigrant status. The regulation also requires SDLAs to query the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), to confirm the applicant’s claim to be a lawful immigrant.