California<\/a>,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cAnd, as we pull more money, we also have the option of pulling California\u2019s ability to issue commercial driver\u2019s licenses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nEva Spiegel, a spokesperson for the California department of motor vehicles, said the Trump administration \u201chas no legitimate basis\u201d to withhold federal highway transportation funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe federal government previously allowed commercial driver\u2019s licenses for asylum seekers and refugees and on September 26 announced emergency regulations to cease this practice that went into effect on September 29. California is in compliance with these regulations and will remain in compliance with federal law,\u201d Spiegel said via email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Duffy threatened to revoke funds last month, a spokesperson for Newsom dismissed the attack and noted that CDL holders from California had a significantly lower rate of crashes than both the national average and that of Texas, which is the only state with more licensed commercial drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month the transportation department tightened commercial driver\u2019s license requirements for non-citizens after three fatal crashes that officials said were caused by immigrant truck drivers. Only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible for CDLs under the new rules and states must verify an applicant\u2019s immigration status in a federal database. The licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant\u2019s visa expires sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duffy said last month that California should never have issued 25% of 145 licenses investigators reviewed. He cited four California licenses that remained valid after the driver\u2019s work permit expired \u2013 sometimes years after. The state had 30 days to come up with a plan to comply or lose funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A nationwide commercial driver\u2019s license audit began after officials say a driver in the country illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. It found licenses that were issued improperly in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duffy said on Sunday that California had unlawfully issued tens of thousands of these licenses to non-citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you have 60,000 people on the roads who shouldn\u2019t have licenses,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cThey\u2019re driving fuel tankers, they\u2019re driving school buses, and we have seen some of the crashes on American roadways that come from these people who shouldn\u2019t have these licenses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duffy said earlier this month that he would withhold $40m from California because it was the only state that was failing to enforce English language requirements for truckers. California defended its practices in a formal response to the transportation department, but federal officials were not satisfied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The investigation launched after the Florida crash found what Duffy called significant failures in the way California is enforcing rules that took effect in June after one of Donald Trump\u2019s executive orders. California had issued the driver a commercial license, but these English rules predate the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sean Duffy says state is illegally issuing commercial driver\u2019s licenses, but DMV spokesperson says California is complying with law Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, warned on Sunday that he was about make good on a threat to revoke millions in federal funds for California because he says the state is illegally issuing commercial driver\u2019s licenses to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":49099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[1189,30554,35088],"class_list":["post-49098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-california","tag-non-citizen","tag-truck-license-plate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49100,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49098\/revisions\/49100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}