‘Every Dollar Possible’: Trump Admin Cracks Down on States That Put Illegal Drivers on the Road

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Friday threatened to withhold tens of millions in federal taxpayer highway funds for New York and other blue states that issue commercial driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Duffy said in a Wednesday news conference that among blue states allowing foreign nationals to receive CDLs, including California, New York is the “worst offender,” according to a nationwide audit his department conducted. He had announced on Sept. 26 that the Department of Transportation would be cracking down on non-domiciled CDLs, which states issue to non-citizens.

“We will pull every dollar possible from every single state that’s unwilling to work with this administration and these longstanding rules to make sure that when American family gets in a car, they shouldn’t be worried that they have an unqualified foreigner operating an 80,000 pound big rig that could endanger their lives … or an unqualified driver operating a motor coach,” Duffy said at the press conference.

“[Fifty-three percent] of New York’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued unlawfully or illegally,” Duffy added. “Now, what New York does is, if an applicant comes in and they have a work authorization for 30 days, 60 days, one year, New York automatically issues them an eight-year commercial driver’s license, that’s contrary to the law.”

“But we also found that New York many times won’t even verify whether they have a work authorization, they have a visa, or they’re in the country legally,” he continued. “So, they’re just giving eight-year commercial driver’s licenses to people who are coming through their DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] and sending them out on American roadways, and again, they’re endangering the lives of American families.”

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake — it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership,” Duffy said in a Friday news release. “[Democratic New York] Gov. [Kathy] Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses. If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding.”

Hochul’s office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“New York must act immediately to comprehensively audit its CDL program and revoke every single illegally issued licenses,” Derek Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, added in the same press release.

The release specified that the state “has 30 days to respond to FMCSA’s enforcement action.” FMCSA is an agency within the Department of Transportation.

“I’m going to give New York 30 days, because that’s what the law requires to come into compliance with the rules that have been long standing at the Department of Transportation,” Duffy also said at the press conference. “If they come into compliance, we’re going to work with them. If New York refuses to come into compliance, because Kathy Hochul, for some reason, believes that we should have unqualified truck drivers on American roadways. We are going to pull tens of millions of dollars.”

Duffy specified that the Department of Transportation’s mission is not to have conflict with New York, California, or other blue states, but instead to “get compliance, to make sure we have safe commercial drivers on American roadways and Americans are safe.”

“If we’re going to have drivers on American roadways, they need to be the best trained, the best skills, because if operated incorrectly or inappropriately, these [vehicles] are lethal weapons on American roadways,” Duffy said during the news conference.

California had issued a CDL to Jashanpreet Singh, an illegal immigrant truck driver accused of killing three people in a multi-vehicle crash, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese on Oct. 23.

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