New York sued on Friday to block the Transportation Department from withholding nearly $74 million in highway money, escalating a fight over commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants. The state says the federal government is punishing it for refusing to revoke nearly 33,000 licenses it believes were lawfully issued.
The lawsuit lands as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is pressing states to tighten the rules on who can qualify for a commercial driver’s license. New York joined California in challenging those efforts, with federal officials saying they found significant flaws in more than half of the 200 licenses they reviewed.
The state’s case turns on how those licenses were handled. Transportation Department officials said New York’s computer system defaulted to issuing licenses valid for eight years, even when a driver’s visa would expire sooner. The department said the records were reviewed after an audit uncovered problems last year, and the dispute sharpened after an August crash in Florida involving a truck driver Duffy said should never have had a license.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state believes it properly followed the rules in place when the licenses were issued, and state officials said they do not plan to revoke them. That puts New York on a collision course with federal regulators who have already shown they are willing to cut off money: California has lost $200 million over concerns about its non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses and English language requirements for truckers.
The Transportation Department has been reviewing non-domiciled commercial driver’s license records in every state, and most states have either complied or are still negotiating with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Several others, including Pennsylvania, Minnesota and North Carolina, have been warned they could lose funding. For New York, the case now asks whether the state can keep nearly $74 million tied to highway aid while refusing to undo licenses it says were issued correctly.
