USDOT says Illinois must revoke illegally-issued CDLs or lose $128 million

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) said that Illinois stands to lose millions in transportation funding over improperly issued non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs).

On February 17, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that an ongoing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) audit revealed that nearly 20% of Illinois’ non-domiciled CDLs were issued illegally.

According to Duffy, issues uncovered by the FMCSA audit include that Illinois illegally issued non-domiciled CDLs to:

• Drivers whose licenses were valid long after their lawful presence in the U.S. expired. 
• Drivers without Illinois first verifying the individual’s lawful presence in the U.S.  

In order to avoid the loss of $128 million in federal transportation funding, USDOT demanded that Illinois take the following actions:

• Immediately pause issuance of non-domiciled CDLs. 
• Identify all unexpired non-domiciled CDLs that fail to comply with FMCSA regulations.
• Revoke and reissue all noncompliant non-domiciled CDLs if they comply with the federal requirements.
• Conduct a comprehensive internal audit to identify all procedural and programming errors, training and quality assurance problems, insufficient policies and practices, and other issues that have resulted in the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs that did not meet Federal rules.    

“The last administration looked the other way as states blatantly defied federal laws when unlawfully issuing licenses to foreign drivers. Secretary Duffy and I will be relentless in our agenda to reinstate commonsense safety standards that protect our truckers and American families,” said FMCSA Administrator Derek D. Barrs. 

“I need our state partners to understand that they work for the American people, not illegal immigrants who broke the law illegally entering our country and continue to break it by operating massive big rigs without the proper qualifications,” said Duffy. “Biden and Buttigieg forced Americans to share their roads with unqualified and unvetted foreign drivers, but the Trump Administration is putting the needs of American families first where they belong.” 

USDOT has threatened to withhold transportation funding from several states over non-domiciled CDL concerns, but so far, the agency has only followed through with this threat with the state of California, which lost $158 million.