The Biden-era sanctuary state policies in California foisted on the state and Americans by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom have once again collided with federal law — this time on America’s highways.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has admitted to illegally issuing 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to foreign nationals who were not legally eligible to hold them, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday.
“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed,” Duffy wrote in a statement. “Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”
The revelation has triggered an immediate federal crackdown, forcing the state to revoke every single one of the licenses or face steep financial penalties.
According to Duffy, the exposure came after an audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) found systemic violations in California’s licensing process — violations that allowed non-domiciled, and in many cases undocumented, individuals to obtain credentials to operate heavy commercial vehicles, including semitrucks and school buses.
The Department of Transportation confirmed official notices have been sent to all 17,000 holders, warning them their licenses no longer meet federal standards and will automatically expire within 60 days.
California is also being required to submit a full audit of its non-domiciled CDL program so federal regulators can verify that every illegal license has been canceled — and to ensure the same policy failures do not recur.
The FMCSA’s investigation uncovered “systemic policy, procedural, and programming errors” in California’s non-domiciled CDL system. These lapses allowed licenses to be issued to individuals whose legal stay in the U.S. had expired — or in some cases, who had no verified legal status at all.
The audit found more than 25% of CDL records sampled in California failed to comply with federal law, including instances where licenses extended far beyond the driver’s work authorization period.
Critics have long accused Newsom of using state agencies to shield illegal immigrants from federal enforcement.
California remains one of the few states openly granting standard driver’s licenses to illegal residents — but now the DMV appears to have gone even further, handing out commercial licenses that allow operation of 40-ton trucks on interstate routes.
This latest violation compounds California’s growing conflict with federal regulators. In October, the Department of Transportation announced it was withholding $40 million in federal funds after finding that the state had failed to comply with mandatory English language proficiency (ELP) standards for commercial drivers.
The agency has now warned Sacramento that up to $160 million in federal highway funds could be pulled unless the state brings its licensing programs into full compliance.
The report also noted the California Highway Patrol publicly declared in July that it had “no intention” of enforcing the federal English-language requirement for truckers — a position Duffy slammed as reckless.
In May, he ordered stricter nationwide enforcement of ELP rules, emphasizing that any commercial motor vehicle operator who cannot communicate in English will be placed out of service.
With 17,000 illegal CDLs now revoked, Duffy says the Department’s mission is clear: hold California accountable and restore integrity to the nation’s transportation system.
“This isn’t about politics,” Duffy said. “It’s about safety — and about the rule of law.”
Duffy’s investigatory exposé comes as the Democrat-forced government shutdown has kept him busy dealing with air traffic control crisis nationwide, showing the self-admitted Democrat obstruction has been flooding the zone against the Trump administration in many different ways and industries.
Newsmax writer Eric Mack contributed to this report.
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