A week after migrant groups filed a lawsuit, California announced Tuesday that it will delay revoking 17,000 commercial driver's licenses until March to allow more time to ensure that truckers and bus drivers who meet legal requirements can keep their permits.

But U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the state could lose $160 million if it misses a Jan. 5 deadline to revoke the licenses. Duffy has already withheld $40 million in federal funds because, he says, California is not enforcing English proficiency requirements for truck drivers.

California decided to revoke the licenses after Duffy pressured the state to ensure that migrants who are in the country illegally do not receive licenses. An audit found problems such as licenses that remained valid long after a person's permission to be in the country expired or others where the state could not prove that it verified a driver's immigration status.

“California does NOT have an ‘extension’ to continue breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads,” Duffy said on the social network X.

The Department of Transportation has prioritized this issue since, in August, a truck driver who did not have the relevant permits to be in the United States made an illegal U-turn in Florida and caused an accident that left three people dead.

Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.

Follow on

Authorities in California say they are working to make sure the federal Department of Transportation is satisfied with the reforms they have implemented. The state had planned to resume issuing commercial driver's licenses in mid-December, but was prevented from doing so by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

“Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy – our supply chains don't move and our communities don't stay connected without them,” said DMV Director Steve Gordon.

The Sikh Coalition, a nationwide Sikh civil rights group, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of California drivers. They maintain that migrant truckers were being treated unfairly. Both the driver of the Florida crash and the driver of another fatal crash in California in October are Sikhs.

Migrants make up about 20% of all truck drivers, but nonresident immigrant permits are just 5% of all commercial driver's licenses, or about 200,000 drivers. The Department of Transportation also proposed new restrictions that would clearly limit which foreigners could obtain a license, but a court suspended that rule.

Mumeeth Kaur, legal director of the Sikh Coalition, said that this delay “is an important step towards mitigating the immediate threat that these drivers face to their lives and livelihoods.”

Duffy had previously threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funds from California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota following audits that found significant problems with existing rules, such as business licenses that were valid long after a foreign truck driver's work permit expired. He withdrew the threat to withhold California's $160 million after the state said it would revoke the permits, saying authorities were complying with regulations.

Road transport sector associations have praised the plan to remove unqualified drivers from the roads who should not have licenses or who cannot speak English. They also applauded the Transportation Department's moves to go after questionable commercial driver's license schools.

___

This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.