New York filed a lawsuit Friday to challenge the federal Transportation Department’s decision to withhold nearly $74 million in highway money because the state refused to revoke nearly 33,000 questionable commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants since an audit uncovered problems last year.
New York joins California in suing over Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s efforts to tighten up the rules for which immigrants can qualify to get a commercial driver’s license and make sure the states are properly enforcing the existing rules.
The federal government declined to comment on the new lawsuit Friday, but officials have been clear about the problems they found with more than half of the 200 licenses they reviewed. Officials said they found significant flaws such as licenses remaining valid long after an immigrant was authorized to be in the country. New York’s computer system defaulted to issuing licenses valid for eight years regardless of how long a driver’s visa remained valid, according to the Transportation Department.
The issue became prominent after an August crash in Florida involving a truck driver who Duffy said shouldn’t have ever had a license performing an illegal U-turn that killed three people. California has lost $200 million over concerns about its non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses and whether it is enforcing English language requirements for truckers. Several other states — including Pennsylvania, Minnesota and North Carolina — have been warned they are at risk of losing funding.
But most states have either complied or remain in negotiations with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The federal government has reviewed records related to these non-domiciled CDLs in every state.
New York officials say this is ‘political payback’
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state believes it properly followed all the rules for commercial licenses that were in place at the time they were issued, so it doesn’t plan to revoke the licenses. The state argues that it shouldn’t lose the $73.5 million the Transportation Department is withholding.
New York officials reviewed all those cases and found that all the recipients were authorized to be in the country when they received their licenses. The state pointed that out to federal officials in January, so James said it’s unfair for the federal government to withhold money the state relies on to help provide safe roads and bridges.
“By canceling this funding, the federal government is putting jobs and communities at risk. New Yorkers are counting on these investments, and we will not let the president jeopardize our communities’ safety,” she said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that audits performed by the first Trump administration confirmed the state was following the federal regulations. But Duffy has taken a more strict approach to enforcing the rules in the current administration.
“Once again, New York is facing devastating federal cuts for nothing more than political payback,” Hochul said. “Ripping away money that goes toward critical safety upgrades on our roads is reckless and it is illegal.”
Broad effort to improve safety in the trucking industry
In addition to trying to get unqualified drivers off the road, Duffy has led an effort to crack down on questionable trucking schools and go after trucking companies that violate the rules and then just change their names and keep operating.
Even before that, the Trump administration announced last summer that they would begin enforcing existing rules that require truck drivers to be able to speak English proficiently. Duffy has said those language skills could prove crucial during a traffic stop or after an accident to ensure that truck drivers can communicate with authorities about what happened and whether they are transporting hazardous chemicals.
Trucking industry groups have praised the efforts because they say that too many unqualified drivers who shouldn’t have licenses have been able to get behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound (about 39,916 kilograms) truck. That jeopardizes the safety of everyone on the highways and tends to depress how much drivers can earn if companies are able to hire cheap immigrant truck drivers and pay them less.
The trucking trade groups have long been pushing for more accountability in the system and stronger standards on who can set up a trucking company. For years, anyone willing to pay a fee of a few hundred dollars and show proof of insurance could set up a trucking company.
Questionable operations might not be caught until much later when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration gets a chance to audit them.
Immigrants believe they are being targeted unfairly
Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but these non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses or about 200,000 drivers.
So immigrant groups have said they believe that many drivers are being unfairly targeted. The spotlight has been on Sikh truckers because the driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikh. Several groups sued to challenge California’s plan to revoke roughly 20,000 commercial licenses.
So Duffy announced a new final rule in February that had been properly vetted to tighten up the restrictions on which immigrants can qualify for a commercial license.
The only immigrant drivers who can get a license under the new rules are holders of an H-2a, H-2b or E-2 visa. H-2a is for temporary agricultural workers while H-2b is for temporary nonagricultural workers, and E-2 is for people who make substantial investments in a U.S. business.
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