California revokes 17,000 commercial driver's licenses from illegal immigrants

California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver's licenses (CDL) issued to illegal immigrants after discovering that the expiration dates had exceeded the drivers' legal length of stay in the country.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Wednesday called the revocations an "admission" of previous mistakes made by the state of California. "[Gavin Newsom] and his state were caught red-handed after weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked," Duffy said.

"This is just the beginning. California must revoke every illegally issued CDL or I will pull $160 million in federal funds," the transportation secretary added in X.

Truckers who don't speak English

The move comes amid increased scrutiny from the Trump administration and follows a review prompted by federal concern over states issuing commercial driver's licenses to people who are undocumented or have inadequate documentation.

The federal government has been lobbying on this issue and criticizing The Golden State since an accident in Florida in August that killed three people. The man responsible was Harjinder Singh, an immigrant truck driver who was in the country illegally, who spoke poor English, and who obtained his commercial license in the state of California, where he resided.

"This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures," Duffy said at the time.

Likewise, last month, another accident in California killed three people. It involved a truck driver who was in the country illegally, which only increased concern among federal authorities.