Transportation Department tightens rules for foreign-born truck drivers

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday that the federal government is tightening its rules for foreign truck drivers and is pursuing enforcement actions against California for noncompliance in issuing commercial driver’s licenses. He called the process for granting licenses to foreign-born drivers “100% broken” and a threat to public safety.

“The current federal regulations are allowing dangerous, unqualified drivers on American roadways,” Duffy said after detailing several fatal crashes involving foreign-born truck drivers this year. “This means that even when the rules are being followed, dangerous individuals who shouldn’t be near a big rig are getting behind the wheel and causing crashes on our roadways.”

Citing “deeply flawed” eligibility requirements for foreign-born truck drivers, Duffy announced two immediate actions. Effective Friday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will restrict non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses to individuals who have lawfully entered the United States under a narrow set of employment-based visas.

Going forward, foreign-born drivers will only be eligible for a non-domiciled CDL if they have an H-2B, H-2A or E-2 visa, FMCSA Chief Counsel Jesse Elison said. H-2Bs and H-2As are issued for jobs that are seasonal or intermittent when there are not enough U.S.-born workers for the position. E-2s are issued to nationals of a country with which the U.S. has a treaty that involve substantial capital investments in the U.S.

The new rule mandates that states issuing non-domiciled CDLs verify a driver’s immigration documents with the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system. Under the new rule, Elison said non-domiciled CDLs will expire when the employment visa ends or in one year — whichever comes first. Drivers will need to renew their licenses in person, he said.

The new rule stems from a nationwide audit the Transportation Department conducted into non-domiciled CDLs earlier this year that revealed a “systematic breakdown among states to follow the law and issue licenses properly,” Duffy said.

He said the audit found states were not following basic procedures and had uncovered “a gross lack of oversight in the states that issue CDLs. This means that thousands of licenses that should never have been issued actually were issued.”

The new rulemaking only applies to new non-domiciled CDLs, according to the FMCSA. It does not impact the 200,000 drivers who currently hold non-domiciled CDLs or the 20,000 drivers who have acquired learner’s permits in the U.S., Elison said, adding that about 5% of all CDLs issued for interstate commerce are to foreign-born drivers.

He estimated that if the rule applied to current non-domiciled CDL holders, 95% would no longer be able to drive.

Elison and Duffy singled out California for a new enforcement action. FMCSA announced on Friday a “preliminary determination of substantial noncompliance with the standards of issuing CDLs” in California and said the state risks losing federal highway funding or having its CDL program terminated if it doesn’t comply with federal rules.

As part of the enforcement, the FMCSA will require California to immediately pause issuing non-domiciled CDLs and learner’s permits. The state must also identify all expired non-domiciled CDLs, conduct an internal audit and notify FMCSA of its audit findings, including the number of expired non-compliant CDLs.

Elison said there are over 60,000 non-domiciled CDLs in California, 15% of which are in violation of federal regulations.

“They need to avoid and rescind improperly issued non-domiciled CDLs and reissue them in compliance with the new federal regulations,” Elison said, adding that California has 30 days to respond to the FMCSA noncompliance letter sent Friday.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the FMCSA enforcement action.

Duffy first suggested the DOT would pull federal highway funding from the state in August, following a fatal crash in Florida involving India-born driver Harjinder Singh. The California DMV told Spectrum News in August that its issuance of a non-domiciled CDL to Singh had followed all federal and state laws and that it confirmed Singh’s legal presence in the United States with the SAVE system before issuing him a REAL ID.  

While the FMCSA enforcement action was only taken against California, Elison said the agency is asking all states to pause their issuance of non-domiciled CDLs to ensure compliance with the new federal rule.

“We saw during COVID how important our truck drivers are to moving in supplies, goods, food throughout our country,” Duffy said. “This is not about the movement of goods. We have a lot of drivers who are U.S. citizens who are ready and willing and able to take these loads. This will not impact the flow of goods at all. We don’t need non-domiciled drivers to make sure our goods flow freely throughout the country.”

The trade group representing the U.S. trucking industry “supports steps to strengthen credentialing standards and ensure that non-domiciled CDL holders have and maintain the proper authorization and qualifications required under federal law,” American Trucking Associations CEO Chris Spear said in a statement about the DOT’s new regulation.

“Rules only work when they are consistently enforced, and it’s imperative that all state driver licensing agencies comply with federal regulations. We appreciate USDOT taking these steps to guarantee that happens, and we look forward to reviewing the rule in detail and providing specific feedback in our official comments.”