It’s “reckoning day” for California.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday it will withhold $160 million in funding to California after the Golden State missed a deadline to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses the feds say were improperly issued to illegal immigrants.
“It’s reckoning day for Gavin Newsom and California,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.
“Our demands were simple: follow the rules, revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers, and fix the system so this never happens again,” Duffy added. “[Gavin] Newsom has failed to do so – putting the needs of illegal immigrants over the safety of the American people.”
In September, a nationwide audit revealed more than 25% of immigrant CDL’s issued by California were illegal, including licenses that expired years past the expiration date of their lawful presence documentation.
The Trump administration gave a deadline of Jan. 5 deadline to cancel the licenses.
California initially agreed to revoke the licenses, but in December announced it would delay the revocations to give immigrants who legally qualify a chance to keep them.
That decision came as the state was slapped with a lawsuit from a coalition representing nearly 20,000 immigrant truckers — saying that revoking the licenses would “result in mass work stoppages.”
The group argued that the state hadn’t reissued contested licenses or created a process to remedy any issues before the federal deadline of Jan. 5.
Controversy over commercial licenses was sparked in August when an illegal immigrant truck driver was involved in a crash while making an illegal U-turn in Florida that left three people dead.
Then, in October, semitruck driver Jashanpreet Singh — who was also in the country illegally — was cited for “gross negligence” when he caused a multi-vehicle crash in California that killed three people and injured several more, according to the San Bernardino County District Attorney.
