Overview
- Federal officials say California admitted issuing 17,000 non-domiciled commercial licenses out of compliance, and notices tell those drivers their credentials will expire in 60 days as FMCSA demands a full state audit.
- Governor Gavin Newsom’s office disputes the federal framing, saying affected drivers had federal work authorization and that the state is enforcing a rule that license expiration must align with lawful U.S. status.
- An FMCSA review reported that about one in four sampled California non-domiciled CDL records failed to meet federal standards, part of a broader finding of systemic noncompliance in several states.
- DOT has already withheld roughly $40 million over English-proficiency enforcement and is threatening up to about $160 million more unless California demonstrates that all noncompliant licenses are removed.
- The push follows deadly crashes involving unauthorized drivers, new federal rules now restrict future noncitizen CDL eligibility to H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visas with status verification, and advocacy lawsuits have temporarily slowed parts of the enforcement.