With a focus on highway safety, United States Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy issued a final rule yesterday, focusing on preventing unqualified foreign drivers from obtaining licenses to drive commercial trucks and buses, with DOT saying that these drivers pose a significant safety threat to the driving public.
“For far too long, America has allowed dangerous foreign drivers to abuse our truck licensing systems—wreaking havoc on our roadways. This safety loophole ends today,” said Duffy. “Moving forward, unqualified foreign drivers will be unable to get a license to operate an 80,000-pound big rig. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are putting the safety of the driving public first. From enforcing English language standards to holding fraudulent carriers accountable, we will continue to attack this crisis on our roads head on.”
DOT explained that the impetus for the final rule stems from how foreign drivers have not been subject to consular and interagency screening from receiving a commercial driver’s license (CDL), whereas U.S. drivers are subject to what it called strict checks through national databases regarding previous violations, including DUIs, reckless driving, or crash involvement—adding that states lack the ability to access the driving records of foreigners and illegal immigrants. Which they described as a loophole that enabled people with a history of dangerous driving to get a CDL with an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) that does not screen for highway safety, stating that the reliance on EADs led to more than 30 states illegally issuing tens of thousands of licenses to ineligible drivers.
What’s more, it said that the final rule, which takes effect 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register, closes two “critical failures,” including a safety gap that allowed State Driver’s Licensing Agencies (SDLAs) to issue CDLs to foreign drivers without verifying their driving history and also the aforementioned EADs.
Top provisions of the final rule, cited by DOT include:
- Strict Eligibility: Eligibility is limited to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 nonimmigrant status holders, who undergo enhanced interagency vetting;
- Elimination of EADs: EADs are no longer accepted as proof of eligibility due to the systemic noncompliance at the SDLAs. Applicants must present an unexpired foreign passport and specific Form I-94 documentation; and
- Mandatory SAVE Verification: States must query the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to confirm every applicant’s lawful immigration status
This final rule is part of a series of regulatory and executive actions undertaken by the White House and DOT, including: an Executive Order focused on roadway safety, directing DOT to take action; a nationwide audit that exposed systematic non-compliance in issuing non-domiciled CDLs across several states, including New York, California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, and North Carolina; a nationwide audit of states unveiling non-domiciled CDLs; and a DOT order with new guidelines on augmenting English language enforcement for commercial truck operators, with commercial motor vehicle drivers that do not comply with FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) English language proficiency (ELP) requirements will subsequently be placed out of service.
“A critical safety gap allowed unqualified drivers with unknown driving histories to get behind the wheel of commercial vehicles,” said FMCSA Administrator Derek D. Barrs. “We are closing that gap today to ensure that only qualified, vetted drivers are operating on our nation’s roadways. If we cannot verify your safe driving history, you cannot hold a CDL in this country.”
At last month’s SMC3 Jump Start conference, Barrs said the pressure that the FMCSA, and the trucking sector, by extension, currently face is in making sure it delivers on safety, for things like non-domiciled CDLs (commercial driver licenses) and entry-level driver training, and others.
“We [FMCSA] are valuable in making sure that we move goods and services and people across this country safely,” said Barrs. “There is pressure on us to make sure that we do that right and that we work together with our stakeholders.”
Addressing non-domiciled CDLs, defined as an individual that is not a U.S. citizen and has a CDL issued by a state license agency, coupled with some drivers holding them that are not legally in the U.S., there are various efforts at the administrative level to counter that.
“With the non-domiciled CDLs, we have done a safety audit on 23 states that we’re working with right now and we are doing reviews of the state agencies in regards to how they’re actually issuing the non-domicile CDLs,” he said. “We have drivers who have been issued CDLs who may have been legal to be in the country, but they may not have been able to be here for two years. But agencies are issuing driver’s licenses for eight, nine years or more for them to be in the country. Now that doesn’t make sense to me. So, the process is a breakdown. There’s a systematic failure inside some of the agencies, but we are working closely with them to ensure that this is not happening moving forward. Most states in this at this point have stopped issuing the non-domiciled CDLs until they can get their systems correct, and we can go in from an agency and work with the state to verify that the systems are in place to ensure the compliance of that of that rule.”
In terms of non-domiciled CDL collaboration efforts between states and the FMCSA, Barrs said things are moving along well, noting that all parties want to be good partners, adding that drivers need to be qualified, regardless of which state they are driving through, as it affects everyone if qualified drivers are not on U.S. roadways.
