A federal audit has found that New York State is routinely issuing unlawful or illegal commercial driver’s licenses – which are valid for up to eight years – to foreign applicants with expired visas or work authorizations. The audit, conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, revealed that 53% of more than 32,000 nondomiciled CDLs – close to 17,000 licenses – issued by the state failed to comply with federal law. “What we uncovered in New York is not an administrative oversight – it’s a systematically, grossly unacceptable deviation from a federal safety regulation that has been on the books for a long period of time,” said FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs, alongside Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at a press briefing in New York on Friday. Barrs said FMCSA’s audit found that New York “blindly issues non-domiciled CDLs with an eight-year expiration – long past when drivers should lawfully be in this country,” and also “uncovered numerous examples where New York relied upon expired, lawful-presence documents to issue CDLs.” window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot(‘/21776187881/FW-Responsive-Main_Content-Slot1’, [[300, 100], [320, 50], [728, 90], [468, 60]], ‘div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0’).defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0’); }); Barrs said the state must immediately pause the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs and commercial learner’s permits and conduct a comprehensive audit of all non-domiciled credentials that have been issued. The state must also “void, rescind, and reissue all licenses that were not issued in compliance with federal law,” he said. “A 53% percent failure rate…
