Trump Administration Faces Legal Challenge Over CDL Crackdown Targeting immigrant Truckers
Washington, D.C. – A Trump administration rule aimed at tightening commercial driver’s license (CDL) eligibility for immigrants is facing a legal challenge, raising concerns about its impact on teh trucking industry and whether it’s motivated by immigration enforcement rather than public safety. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is concurrently pressuring states to revoke CDLs issued to drivers whose federal work authorization has expired.
The emergency rule, critics say, would significantly limit which immigrants without permanent legal status can qualify for CDLs, restricting eligibility to those on a limited number of temporary visas.Cassandra Zimmer-Wong, an immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Centre, estimates this could force as many as 200,000 immigrant truckers out of the industry.
The DOT is also urging states to revoke CDLs issued when the applicant’s federal work authorization had already expired. California has announced it will revoke approximately 17,000 CDLs that do not comply with state law, stating that “the expiration date of a CDL must be on or before the expiration of the legal presence documents provided to the DMV,” according to a statement provided to NPR. Pennsylvania faces the potential withholding of $75 million in federal funds if it doesn’t revoke CDLs the Trump administration deems illegally issued.
Despite the crackdown, the DOT’s own safety data audits have revealed no correlation between a trucker’s country of origin and their driving record. Zimmer-Wong expressed skepticism about the rule’s stated safety goals, stating, “When I looked at the new rule and the way that it was written… it just feels very clear that the intention was to get immigrant drivers out of work, and it wasn’t necessarily about safety.”
A panel of judges from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the rule while considering a legal challenge, but the trump administration continues to pursue making the rule permanent. The debate highlights ongoing tensions surrounding immigration policy and its intersection with critical infrastructure sectors like transportation.
