It was never meant to get this way. The Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 laid out the rules for issue of a commercial driver’s license (CDL) and established CDLIS — the CDL Information System that would ensure that all states shared information.
It was federal law, under the auspices of the Secretary of Transportation, but administered at state level.
The goal was uniformity. Every driver, every jurisdiction, every qualification, all standardized by 1992.
Fast-forward 40 years. We’re not there yet.
- Traffic convictions in some states don’t show up on Motor Vehicle Records (MVRs) in other states.
- Data about CDL suspensions isn’t shared with all law enforcement.
- States can’t even agree on who should get a CDL, with some requiring proof of citizenship or at least legal residency while others hand them out to just about anyone.
Working toward uniform regulations
Last fall, the current Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, attempted to bring the states into line on residency requirements for issuance of a CDL.
At Duffy’s direction, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the trucking arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), issued an Emergency Interim Final Rule entitled “Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers Licenses,” on Sept. 29, 2025. The intent of the interim rule, sparked by an August 2025 Florida crash in which three people were killed after colliding with a rig driven by an illegal immigrant with a California-issued CDL, was to clarify the documentation necessary to grant CDLs to immigrants to the U.S.
But wait. Not so fast.
But on Nov. 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay of the interim ruling pending further review, finding that it was likely that groups that filed suit against it had demonstrated “a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their challenge.”
The plaintiffs included two of the largest U.S. public employee unions — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — which provided the muscle behind the case of Jorge Rivera Lujan, an immigrant under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) rules who had been denied a CDL renewal due to his immigration status.
The immigration rules weren’t being challenged.
The suit claimed the FMCSA had not followed proper rulemaking procedures for the “emergency” ruling. The court ruled that the FMCSA had not consulted with states, had not shown a good enough cause for an emergency rule, and had not allowed for the usual process of notice and comment.
In any event, the stay prevented enforcement of the emergency “final” rule.
FMCSA’s final rule
Undeterred, the FMCSA on Feb. 13, 2026, issued its Final Rule on the matter, imposing a March 16, 2026, implementation date. The rule restricts the issuance of CDL or CLP (commercial learner’s permit) to non-immigrants with H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visas who are authorized to work in the U.S.
The H-2A visa covers temporary agricultural workers, while H-2B covers non-agricultural work. E-2 visas cover those who invest in U.S. business, such as a restaurant franchise, but can also apply to family members and certain employees.
It’s a question of expiration dates.
A key issue in the dispute is the reliance of some state licensing agencies on Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) as evidence that immigrants are eligible for CDLs. Those EADs come with an expiration date.
Unfortunately, CDLs are often issued with expiration dates beyond the expiration of a driver’s EAD. According to the FMCSA, since a driver with an expired EAD is no longer authorized to hold a CDL, the expiration dates on both documents should match.
Another key issue is driver history checks.
The text of the final rule points out that domestic drivers “face rigorous driver history checks through the Commercial Driver’s License Information System (CDLIS) and the Problem Driver Pointer System (PDPS).
State licensing agencies, however, don’t have access to the same sorts of databases in foreign countries. According to the rule, this “effectively shielded unsafe driving behaviors—including serious violations or fatal crashes — simply because they occurred outside the reach of U.S. databases.”
The final rule requires “enhanced consular vetting and interagency screening” for non-domiciled drivers as a “functional proxy for driver history vetting.”
The text of the final rule specifically mentioned California, New York and Texas as being among the 30 states that have issued CDLs in error. In California, the non-compliance rate among non-domiciled files was approximately 25%, while New York’s error rate was 53%. Texas came in at 49%.
Broad authority
FMCSA claims its final rule is based on “the broad authority granted to the Secretary of Transportation by the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986, as amended.” Although the original law doesn’t specify immigration requirements, it DOES require the Transportation Secretary to issue regulations on minimum standards “for testing and ensuring the fitness of an individual operating a commercial motor vehicle.”
Who has the final say?
It may be up to the courts to determine whether immigration status and driver “fitness” are one and the same.
In the meantime, Congress may help solidify the issue by incorporating agency rules into legislation. On Oct. 3, 2025, Rep David Rouzer (R-NC) introduced the “Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act” into the U.S. House of Representatives, where it currently sits in the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, a part of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
The bill would specify that states may only issue CDLs to applicants who have lawful immigration status with a visa approved by the Secretary of Transportation. In addition, the CDL or CLP could only be issued for a period of one year or until the visa expires, whichever comes first.
It may be that the bill will be tabled until the invariable court cases over the Final Ruling are decided. New lawsuits were being filed practically before the official announcement of the ruling was announced.
The immigration issue
The bigger issue is the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce longstanding immigration law and opposition to enforcement actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Twelve states have declared themselves “sanctuary states,” while numerous county, city and other jurisdictions have followed suit. Each has laws or policies designed to obstruct immigration enforcement.
The dispute over issuance of CDLs and CLPs to non-domiciled drivers may well continue while the larger issue is debated.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
