New York gave illegal driver’s licenses to foreign truck drivers: Feds

New York has intentionally been giving out truck driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants in violation of federal rules, the Transportation Department said Friday, adding that unless the state fixes things it will be stripped of tens of millions of dollars in highway money.

A staggering 53% of commercial driver’s licenses issued to nondomiciled people — those whose firm legal residence is outside the U.S. — broke the rules.

That includes some who were here illegally and others who had a short-term work permit, but to whom the state issued long-term licenses, as long as eight years.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said New York was the “worst” offender of all states in terms of violating the federal rules, which he said long predate the Trump administration but have been ignored by states and have gone unenforced by previous presidents.

“The mission is to get compliance to make sure we have safe drivers,” he said at a press conference. “We will pull every dollar possible from every single state that’s unwilling to work with this administration and these longstanding rules.”

The Washington Times has reached out to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office for this story.

Mr. Duffy previously threatened California with a loss of funds.

Gov. Gavin Newsom rushed to comply, revoking 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses of nondomiciled drivers that were issued in violation of the law.

Usually, that means migrants who lack solid legal status but have been granted parole or some other iffy status that brings with it a work permit. That work permit is good for a relatively short time, but California and New York — and some other states — issue permits that are good for much longer.

In New York, federal officials said they found one case where someone’s work permit expired in April but was issued an eight-year permit in September. In another case, an eight-year permit was issued in February even though that person’s work permit was to expire in May.

California and New York account for half of all nondomiciled CDLs in the country, Mr. Duffy said.

Mr. Duffy praised California for revoking the 17,000 licenses, but said the state still has another major issue in that it issues CDLs to people who lack English proficiency.

He said the English rules are longstanding and important for safety.

“If there is a crash, you have to be able to communicate with law enforcement: ‘What’s on your rig, where are you going?’” Mr. Duffy said.