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.
An ICE agent walks through a grocery store parking lot during an immigration raid in Mecca, California. REUTERS“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.






