CALIFORNIA — With a March 6 cancellation deadline approaching for roughly 20,000 non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses, California has filed an emergency motion accusing federal regulators of "moving the goal posts" — while a Bay Area judge has issued a tentative ruling allowing the affected drivers to keep their licenses, at least temporarily.

The dispute stems from a California DMV clerical error in which non-domiciled CDLs were issued with expiration dates extending beyond some immigrant drivers' work permit dates. In most cases, those work authorizations had since been updated, negating any actual conflict, but the DMV lacked the updated records and drivers were never asked to present them. California pushed the original January 5 cancellation date back to March 6 after lawsuits were filed by the Asian Law Caucus and the Sikh Coalition. As punishment, the U.S. Department of Transportation withheld approximately $160 million in federal highway funding and has threatened to withhold an additional $300 million, while also warning that California could lose its authority to issue commercial licenses altogether — a move that would affect all 700,000 commercial drivers in the state.

California says it has been ready since December to reissue corrected licenses, with system fixes in place. But in an emergency motion filed February 18 in Washington D.C. federal court, Attorney General Rob Bonta accused regulators of continuously creating new benchmarks rather than accepting those fixes, and of never intending to allow the DMV to reissue licenses at all. "Its actions make sense only as a manifestation of hostility to immigrant drivers and a desire to force them from the commercial market," the motion stated. A tentative in-person federal review of the DMV's updated processes was scheduled for February 24 through February 26, though confirmation of whether that meeting took place was not available.

The situation is further complicated by a separate federal rule taking effect March 16 that will ban virtually all non-citizens from obtaining or renewing CDLs, with narrow exceptions for H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa holders. That gives California a window of less than three weeks to help affected drivers before the new rules permanently close the door. "There's a potentially very limited window for DMV to fix this problem and to actually reissue licenses before that final rule is scheduled to take effect," said Josh Rosenthal, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus.

On Wednesday, an Alameda County Superior Court judge issued a tentative ruling allowing the 20,000 drivers to keep their licenses. However, state attorneys warned that complying with the order could invite federal retaliation. "Forcing the DMV to keep these 20,000 licenses intact will risk the ultimate harm that California is trying to avoid," said California DOJ attorney Barbara Horne-Petersdorf. A final ruling is expected later this week, after which California's attorneys say they will outline a process for retaining the licenses while maintaining federal compliance.

Among those affected is a school bus driver for disabled children, identified as John Doe 4, who received a cancellation notice the state now admits was issued in error. His license expires February 27 with no current mechanism for renewal, and losing it would cost him his job and his family's health insurance — including coverage for his newborn son, who recently spent time in the intensive care unit. Another plaintiff, Jane Doe, faces having her income cut in half if her license is cancelled due to the same DMV date error. The remaining plaintiffs include long-haul truckers, additional bus drivers, and a tow truck company owner, most with ongoing asylum cases and all holding valid federal work permits.

The economic ripple effects are already being felt. Gunveer Singh, a Hayward-based freight broker, said the cost of a single freight trip from New Jersey to Texas has risen more than 35% due to a shortage of immigrant drivers. "If 20,000 licenses get canceled in March, the problem will only get worse," he said. "And then your prices will go up at the grocery store."

California has approximately 65,000 non-domiciled commercial drivers, many of whom are Punjabi immigrants with ongoing asylum cases, as well as refugees and DACA recipients. The AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, and Public Citizen are suing the federal government to block the March 16 rule, and California has separately sued the DOT over its funding threats and licensing authority warnings. Federal press materials cited 17 crashes and 30 deaths involving non-domicile drivers in 2025 — less than 0.5% of total fatal bus and truck crashes nationally, according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy defended the crackdown, saying the new rules close a "safety loophole." "Moving forward, unqualified foreign drivers will be unable to get a license to operate an 80,000-pound big rig," Duffy said.

📸 Image(s) used under fair use for news reporting.