Trump DOT Cracks Down on CDL Fraud

Armed with several high-profile fatal truck accidents, the Trump Administration launched a campaign to clean up state commercial driver licensing programs and mount a nationwide federal effort to get improperly licensed immigrant operators off the road.

“What our team has discovered should disturb and anger every American,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sept. 26 when he announced the new program. “Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers—oftentimes illegally. This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it.”

He said the actions taken by the Department of Transportation (DOT) are intended to prevent unsafe foreign drivers from renewing their license and will hold state governments accountable if they don’t immediately invalidate improperly issued licenses. The rules were issued and will be enforced by DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

FMCSA’s new emergency rules declare that only those in the U.S. who hold H-2A (Temporary Agricultural Workers), H-2B (Temporary Non-Agricultural Workers), or E-2 (Treaty Investors) status will be allowed to obtain a commercial driver’s license (CDL) or commercial learner’s permit.

DOT claims that this rule will not impact drivers domiciled in Canada or Mexico. FMCSA has previously determined that “CDLs issued by Canadian Provinces and Territories in conformity with the Canadian National Safety Code and Licencias Federales de Conductor issued by the United Mexican States are in accordance” with the CDL standards.

Prior to the federal rules change, it was legal for states to grant a CDL to a non-citizen as long as that person met all the same standards that are required of domestic drivers, including possessing the ability to understand English well enough to comprehend signs and instructions. In regulatory parlance, these foreign drivers’ licenses are called “non-domiciled CDLs.”

Duffy pointed to an ongoing nationwide audit by FMCSA that discovered a number of states already had been issuing licenses illegally to foreign drivers, and found that at times, even when some states claim to adhere to the current regulatory framework, they allow unsafe drivers to operate big rigs on the nation’s highways.

FMCSA’s audit of these non-domiciled CDLs uncovered systemic non-compliance in several states, and what Duffy termed “the worst and most egregious” were found in California. These included drivers who should have been ineligible for a variety of reasons, along with those whose licenses were approved long after the drivers’ lawful presence in the U.S. had expired.

“In California alone, more than 25% of non-domiciled CDLs reviewed were improperly issued,” he pointed out. “This opens the door to thousands of unsafe drivers on the road, including some with licenses extending as many as four years beyond the expiration date of their lawful presence documentation.”

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, frequently mentioned as a possible Democratic Party candidate for President, has been publicly at war with Trump and his administration over immigration policy.

Duffy said the federal government ordered California to immediately pause issuing of non-domiciled CDLs; identify all unexpired non-domiciled CDLs that fail to comply with FMCSA regulations, and revoke and reissue all noncompliant non-domiciled CDLs if they comply with the new federal requirements.

Partisan Pot Shots

Telling the state that it had 30 days to comply, Duffy added, “California must get its act together immediately or I will not hesitate to pull millions in funding. To every other state around the country: Find all improperly issued CDLs and revoke their licenses now. We owe it to the American people to ensure only lawful, qualified drivers are operating big rigs on our highways.”

He added, “California’s reckless disregard is frankly disgusting and an affront to the millions of Americans who expect us to keep them safe.” If DOT ends up withholding federal highway funds from that state, it will lose almost $160 million in the first year and that will double the following year, according to the DOT Secretary.

For his part, Newsom allowed his spokesperson to turn up the heat in response. “Former D-list reality star, now Secretary of Transportation, still doesn't understand federal law. In the meantime, unlike this clown, we'll stick to the facts.” He then claimed that California CDL holders had a fatal crash rate nearly 40% lower than the national average. “Facts don't lie. The Trump administration does.”

(Duffy, a lawyer and former prosecutor, also served as a member of Congress until he resigned after his wife gave birth to their ninth child, who had serious birth defects. He also had a career as a paid commentator on CNN and co-hosted a show on Fox Business News. When he was in college he appeared on the MTV Real World reality show, and on later follow-up shows for the next four years. A former professional lumberjack, he won national lumberjack competitions, which he also later hosted on TV and judged.)

Earlier this year the Administration took aim at foreign CDL drivers when Trump issued an executive order requiring them to be able to understand English, which his staff seemed to be unaware at the time was already in existence as a long-standing federal requirement, even if it had been unevenly enforced.

The Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), the nation’s largest truck driver association, hailed Duffy’s actions. “OOIDA strongly supports Secretary Duffy’s action to enforce long-standing English-proficiency requirements for commercial drivers,” President Todd Spencer declared. “Basic English skills are critical for safely operating a commercial motor vehicle—reading road signs, following emergency instructions and communicating with law enforcement are not optional.”

When announcing the new policy, Duffy also asserted that the states of Washington, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and New Mexico were doing an inadequate job of policing CDLs. California was also singled out by Duffy for failing to act on citations for inadequate English language given to its drivers by other states.

During roadside commercial driver inspections conducted in 20024 by state police, a total of 5,684 violations and five Out of Service (OOS) orders were issued because a driver could not respond adequately to official inquiries in English. Also, 3,538 violations and only a single OOS order were issued for drivers being unable to converse with the general public, understand highway traffic signs and signals in English, respond to official inquiries, and make entries on reports and records.

In Duffy’s view, these numbers were low because some states have been too lax in enforcing the federal language regulation. In addition, over the years professional drivers have raised questions about the licensing process, which has been tarnished by charges of corruption in recent years and accusations that drivers handed licenses had graduated from training schools without proper training.

FMCSA’s most recent audit found that foreign CDL owners had caused five fatal accidents since January, all of which ended up killing a total of 12 motorists.

Recent fatal accidents involving immigrant drivers have given ammunition to critics of the current system, suggesting that the entire commercial driver certification and enforcement process needs a thorough reassessment to uncover and fix flaws in the current program. Perhaps that can happen once we can get federal and state officials to stop calling each other names.