The Trump administration had issued harsh criticism at California and other states that provide commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. According to the Associated Press, California has now announced it plans to revoke 17,000 licenses given to illegals.
The issue was thrust into the public's consciousness in August, when a tractor-trailer driver from India, who not authorized to be in the U.S., made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Fort Pierce, Florida. The result was the deaths of three people. As Fox News reported, the driver, Harjinder Sign, failed the commercial driver’s license test 10 times.
Art Arthur is a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
"It's understandable that the federal government hasn’t actually stepped into this issue earlier. Now, of course, they do set highway standards on a national level, but up until the Biden administration, I don't think anybody in congress ever anticipated that millions of people would simply be released into the United States,” explains Arthur.
Arthur says that the Biden administration’s policies created a problem that the federal government now has to step in and clean up.
“And kudos to the Trump administration for recognizing that this was an issue and for acting so quickly," says Arthur.
Arthur says California's decision to revoke the licenses was partly done for political reasons.
"There's no question that Governor Newsom plans on running for president and that he needs to address the latent problems in the state commercial driver’s licenses scheme,” states Arthur.
While that is one part of it, the other has to do with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who said that California’s revocation of the license is an admission of acting improperly despite previously defending their licensing standards.
“Duffy has the authority to withhold tens of millions of dollars in highway funding from California until it complies. That's not going to make Gavin Newsom popular in California," concludes Arthur.
