California cancels 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants

California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants after discovering that their expiration dates had passed the time the drivers were legally allowed to be in the United States, state officials said Wednesday.

The announcement comes after intense criticism from the Trump administration over California and other states granting licenses to people who are in the country illegally. The issue came to public awareness in August, when an unlicensed U.S. tractor-trailer driver made an illegal turn and led to an accident in Florida that killed three people.

He watches: Duffy says states should revoke commercial driver’s licenses from foreigners who overstay their visas

California’s action to revoke those licenses is an admission that the state acted inappropriately even though it had previously defended its licensing standards, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday. California launched its review of its commercial driver’s licenses after Duffy raised concerns.

“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California were caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses have been revoked,” Duffy said, referring to the state’s governor. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove that it has removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of pickup trucks and school buses.”

Newsom’s office said each of the drivers whose licenses were revoked had valid work permits from the federal government. Initially, his office declined to reveal the exact reason the licenses were revoked, saying it violated state law. Later, his office revealed the state law he was referring to required licenses to expire on or before a person’s legal status to be in the United States expires, the DMV was informed.

However, Newsom’s spokesman, Brandon Richards, responded to Duffy in a statement.

“Once again, Sean’s ‘Rules of the Road’ Duffy has failed to share the truth, spreading easily debunked lies in a sad and desperate attempt to please his Dear Leader,” Richards said.

Fatal truck accidents in Texas and Alabama earlier this year also highlight questions about these licenses. A fiery crash in California that killed three people last month left a truck driver in the country illegally, raising concerns.

Duffy previously imposed new restrictions on immigrants who can qualify for commercial driver’s licenses. He said earlier this fall that California and five other states improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens, but California is the only state against which Duffy has taken action because it was the first where an audit was completed. Reviews in other states have been delayed by the government shutdown, but the Department of Transportation is urging them all to tighten their standards.

Duffy eliminated $40 million in federal funding because he said California doesn’t impose English language requirements on truck drivers, and he confirmed Wednesday that he will take another $160 million from the state for these improperly issued licenses if they don’t invalidate every illegal license and address all the concerns. But revoking these licenses is part of the state’s compliance efforts.

New rules for commercial driver’s licenses announced by Duffy in September make obtaining them extremely difficult for immigrants because only three specific categories of visa holders will be eligible. States will also have to check the applicant’s immigration status in a federal database. The licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner.

Under the new rules, only 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens with business licenses will be eligible for them, which will only be available to drivers with an H-2a, H-2b or E-2 visa. The H-2a is for temporary agricultural workers while the H-2b is for temporary non-agricultural workers, and the E-2 is for people who make significant investments in U.S. businesses. But the rules won’t be applied retroactively, so those 190,000 drivers will be allowed to keep their business licenses at least until it’s time to renew.

These new requirements did not exist at the time the 17,000 licenses were issued in California. But these drivers received notices that their licenses would expire in 60 days.

Duffy said in September that investigators found that a quarter of the 145 licenses they reviewed in California should not have been issued. He cited four California licenses that remained valid after a driver’s work permit expired — sometimes years later.

Newsom’s office said the state followed guidance it received from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on issuing these licenses to noncitizens.

Associated Press writer Sophie Austin contributed to this report from Sacramento, California.