Judge Says California Must Allow 20,000 Immigrant Drivers to Reapply for Commercial Licenses

A California judge said on Wednesday the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles must allow about 20,000 immigrants to reapply for commercial driver’s licenses that were set to be canceled next week under pressure from the Trump administration.

The agency planned to revoke the licenses held by bus, truck, and delivery drivers on March 6 after the federal government found issues regarding expiration dates last fall, caused by DMV clerical errors. The state paused a plan to reissue the non-domiciled licenses in December, after sending 60-day cancellation notices.

The cancellations threatened the livelihoods of drivers through no fault of their own, according to lawyers for several license holders who sued the DMV in Alameda County Superior Court. Judge Karin Schwartz is expected to issue an official ruling in the coming days.

Many of those who received cancellation letters are Sikh asylum seekers from Punjab, India, who said they have valid work permits.

“We’re heartened. This is great news,” said plaintiff attorney Munmeeth Kaur Soni, with the Sikh Coalition, a New York-based national civil rights and advocacy organization, after the court hearing on Wednesday. “It’s a relief that a state court judge recognized that we need to hold our state agencies accountable.” 

Drivers and unions separately sued to block a federal rule that aims to exclude an estimated 190,000 asylum seekers, refugees and other noncitizens from holding commercial licenses. The U.S. Department of Transportation argues its regulation, published this month, will improve public safety after a series of fatal highway accidents involving non-domiciled immigrant drivers. A panel of federal judges put an earlier, similar rule on hold last November.

In the State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Donald Trump highlighted a June 2024 accident in which an 18-wheeler crashed into a stopped car, severely injuring 5-year-old Dalilah Coleman. Trump, who said the driver was an undocumented person licensed in California, called on Congress to pass a law “barring any state from granting commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.”

“Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger or location,” Trump said.

Industry experts doubt reliable evidence links safe driving with immigration status. They point instead to often grueling job conditions fueling driver fatigue as a contributor to truck collisions — especially in long-haul trucking, an industry that employs many drivers without permanent residence in the U.S.

Before the Trump administration changes, states issued non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens who passed knowledge and skills tests and presented federally valid work authorization, but who did not have a green card.

At the court hearing in Oakland, state lawyers representing the DMV argued that its hands are tied. Federal transportation officials prohibited the agency in December from issuing non-domiciled licenses, saying the DMV had not complied with regulations.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has threatened to decertify California’s entire commercial license program if it defies that directive, which could impact hundreds of thousands of drivers, according to the respondent’s brief.

“FMCSA has placed DMV in an impossible position,” attorneys for the state agency said. “Either stand by while thousands of eligible drivers have their non-domiciled CDLs cancelled, or expire, without being able to issue corrected or renewal licenses, or instead resume issuing these licenses and risk disenfranchising even more commercial drivers.”

The DMV initially said it would revoke about 17,300 of the licenses with expiration date errors in early January, and an additional 2,700 in mid-February. But after public outcry, it extended the deadline to March 6, to give federal officials more time to review corrective actions the state agency said it had taken.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded by announcing his agency would withhold $158 million of highway safety funds, a decision the DMV is fighting in court.

Schwartz said the DMV must give drivers impacted by cancellations an opportunity to reapply, according to state law. The details of how the agency plans to issue those licenses in a reasonable time, while taking into account federal threats, should be worked out by the two parties ahead of the March 6 deadline, she said.

Federal officials “have repeatedly threatened to decertify California or take away its funds. The court cannot ignore that,” Schwartz told the packed courtroom proceeding, attended by several Sikh business owners and community leaders from the Bay Area and Central Valley.

After the hearing, some said they felt hopeful, after months of stress and uncertainty for relatives and friends who feared losing jobs in the trucking and logistics industry, a major source of employment for the Sikh community.

Rajinder Singh said his trucking company stood to lose about 20 of 30 drivers who received DMV cancellation letters, including three cousins. The employees support families and owe loans for homes and trucks they’ve purchased, he said.

“If they don’t have a license, how can they work and make payments for the trucks, for the homes? It’s hard,” said Singh, who owns Flying Eagle Xpress, based in Tracy.