California will revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants after a shocking audit revealed that the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the US, state officials said on Wednesday.
The announcement came after President Trump’s Department of Transportation (DOT) turned up the heat on the sanctuary state after three people died in August when an illegal migrant allegedly jackknifed his 18-wheeler during a rogue U-turn, causing a van to smash into the side of the semi. 
The fatal crash happened in Florida, but the driver, Harjinder Singh, has been granted CDLs in California and Washington state.
Singh, who was in immigration proceedings after crossing the border in 2018, then badly flunked English fluency and road sign tests following the smash-up, the DOT said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted California taking action to revoke the licenses as an admission that the state had acted improperly, despite previously defending its licensing standards. 
California initiated a review of CDLs issued in the state after the secretary said it was one of six states that had improperly issued them to noncitizens.
″After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” Duffy said. 
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”
Last month, another illegal migrant who was allegedly under the influence of drugs was accused of causing a horrific pile-up on a California freeway that left three people dead and several others injured.
A damning DOT report then alleged that state officials unlawfully upgraded the migrant’s commercial license weeks after a new federal rule went into effect, barring illegal immigrants from holding such privileges
The restrictions, which require states to verify an applicant’s legal status in a federal database, took effect on Sept. 26 — while the 21-year-old Indian national’s driving rights were expanded on Oct. 15, the report said.
Any licenses issued under the new scheme would also only be valid for up to a year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner than that.
Duffy also revoked $40 million in federal funding from California last month, claiming that the sanctuary state isn’t enforcing English language requirements for truckers.
A spokesman for Newsom, meanwhile, shot back at the secretary in a statement on Wednesday.
“Once again, Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his dear leader,” spokesperson Brandon Richard said.
A source familiar with California’s transportation regulations also denied that the drivers whose licenses were revoked were in the country illegally, claiming they had been granted work authorization by the federal government.
Under the tightened rules announced in September, just 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens with CDLs would still qualify for them – only inclusive of those with H-2a, H2-b or E-2 visas.
However, the new rules won’t be retroactively enforced, meaning the remaining 190,000 drivers will be able to keep their commercial licenses until their next renewal.
