{"id":68932,"date":"2025-12-12T17:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T17:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/68932\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T17:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T17:04:09","slug":"dot-threatens-to-pull-73m-from-ny-after-audit-finds-half-of-commercial-trucking-licenses-went-to-illegal-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/68932\/","title":{"rendered":"DOT threatens to pull $73M from NY after audit finds half of commercial trucking licenses went to illegal drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy<\/a>\u00a0threatened Friday to yank $73 million in\u00a0federal highway funding<\/a>\u00a0meant for New York after an audit found more than half of the Empire State\u2019s commercial\u00a0trucking licenses<\/a>\u00a0were issued to\u00a0foreign-born drivers in the US illegally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat New York does is if an applicant comes in and they have a work authorization \u2014 for 30 days, 60 days, one year \u2014 New York automatically issues them an eight-year commercial driver\u2019s license,\u201d Duffy said during a press conference at DOT headquarters in DC Friday. \u201cThat\u2019s contrary to the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also found that New York many times won\u2019t even verify whether they have a work authorization, they have a visa, or they\u2019re in the country legally,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to yank $73 million in federal highway funding from New York after an audit found more than half of the state\u2019s commercial trucking licenses were issued to foreign-born drivers in the US illegally. Ron Sachs \u2013 CNP for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re just giving eight-year commercial driver\u2019s licenses to people who are coming through their DMV and sending them out on American roadways \u2014 and again they\u2019re endangering the lives of American families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duffy issued the warning after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reviewed all non-domiciled commercial driver\u2019s licenses (CDLs) issued by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles and found a 53% failure rate\u00a0of its roughly 32,000 CDLs.<\/p>\n

The Post revealed in September that one migrant applicant\u00a0didn\u2019t even have to put a first name down\u00a0to receive the driver\u2019s license<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DOT officials also launched a probe Thursday into\u00a0whether a Chinese national accused of causing a fatal pileup on a Tennessee highway this week was\u00a0illegally issued a New York State driver\u2019s license<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cGov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses. If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding,\u201d Duffy said. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

The transportation secretary is\u00a0giving Hochul<\/a>\u00a0and her officials 30 days to\u00a0revoke all the illegal CDLs, pause any new licenses or learner\u2019s permits from being issued and\u00a0conduct their own comprehensive audit<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 or have their federal funding pulled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we uncovered in New York is not an administrative oversight,\u201d added\u00a0FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs at the presser.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a systematically, grossly unacceptable deviation from a federal safety regulation that has been on the books for a long period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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NYS DMV spokesperson Walter McClure responded in a statement:\u00a0\u201cSecretary Duffy is lying about New York State once again in a desperate attempt to distract from the failing, chaotic administration he represents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is the truth: Commercial Drivers Licenses are regulated by the Federal Government, and New York State DMV has, and will continue to, comply with federal rules. Every CDL we issue is subject to verification of an applicant\u2019s lawful status through federally-issued documents reviewed in accordance with federal regulations. This is just another stunt from Secretary Duffy, and it does nothing to keep our roads safer. We will review USDOT\u2019s letter and respond accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FMCSA audit sampled 200 CDL records, of which 107 were unlawfully issued, the US Department of Transportation revealed in a press release. U.S. Department of Homeland Security<\/p>\n

Around half of all CDLs nationwide are issued either in New York or California, the officials noted, before calling on both states to revoke the unlawfully issued licenses.<\/p>\n

In the Golden State, Duffy said 25% of CDLs were unlawfully issued and the state responded by revoking at least 17,000.<\/p>\n

The FMCSA audit sampled 200 CDL records, of which 107 were unlawfully issued, the US Department of Transportation revealed in a press release.<\/p>\n

At present, the New York DMV appears to have \u201cdefaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired,\u201d the release noted.<\/p>\n

The state DMV officials in some cases also \u201crelied upon expired lawful presence documents to issue commercial licenses,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy\u00a0threatened Friday to yank $73 million in\u00a0federal highway funding\u00a0meant for New York after an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5459,3409,2969,3410,9,11,10,49,51,50,87,3736,608,16733,58],"class_list":["post-68932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-department-of-transportation","tag-drivers-license","tag-funding","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-politics","tag-sean-duffy","tag-transportation","tag-trucks","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}