The Golden State is revoking thousands of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), many issued to illegal immigrants, following pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced last week that California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has illegally issued over 17,000 CDLs “to dangerous foreign drivers.” Facing the threat of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, California’s DMV agreed to revoke the 17,000 CDLs.

“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, [Governor] Gavin Newsom (D) and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”

Newsom argued that the CDLs were not issued illegally, but only became illegal after Duffy approved new rules in September governing the issuance of CDLs to foreign drivers. The DOT’s “analysis is based on retroactive application of its new rules,” Newsom’s social media team claimed. Duffy responded, “Blatantly lying to the American people won’t help Newsom’s keyboard warriors get their next jobs.” He explained that his agency is “reprimanding” California for violating DOT’s “ORIGINAL rules,” adding, “My emergency rule came as a consequence in part for California’s total disregard of those federal laws — it was THAT BAD.”

Newsom’s team still claimed that the 17,000 CDL-holders were legally authorized to work in the U.S. and that their licenses were only being revoked because the expiration date on the CDLs was later than the expiration date of the immigrants’ work authorization, according to the Associated Press. However, Duffy has already withheld millions of dollars in federal funding from California and has threatened to withhold even more if state authorities do not comply with federal immigration law and DOT rules and regulations. DOT announced in October that it will be withholding over $40 million from California due to the state’s failure to comply with English language proficiency (ELP) rules for commercial drivers, and Duffy threatened to pull another $160 million in federal funds if California’s DMV did not revoke the illegally-issued CDLs.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “There is no question that the Trump administration’s moves to deny federal funding to California was critical to getting the state to cease its reckless CDL issuance policies.” She quipped, “You would think that the state would follow the rules for public safety reasons, but apparently that was not important enough for Governor Newsom, forcing Transportation Sec. Duffy to have to play hardball with California over this.” Vaughan added, “First, Newsom was defiant, but now has to follow the common-sense rules for issuing these licenses to non-resident aliens. Frankly, I’m not sure why we should be issuing any CDLs at all to aliens who are not legal immigrants, but if we decide to do that, it’s reasonable to require them to speak English and pass a strict driving test, not to mention not be here illegally.”

Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told TWS, “This reckless issuance of CDLs to illegal aliens endangers everyone on the road. Transportation Secretary Duffy was smart to threaten withholding federal transportation funds from California to change California’s behavior of non-compliance.” She continued, “Because states are so dependent on the federal government for a variety of funding, such as Departments of Justice and Homeland Security grants, the Trump administration has significant leverage over sanctuary states to use for compliance with federal agents enforcing federal immigration laws.”

“With respect to revoking the CDLs, that is just step one. The Trump administration should investigate and prosecute employers and driving schools that are recklessly hiring and certifying the drivers. Also, many other federal and state agencies need to be notified so they terminate benefits for these deportable aliens,” Ries emphasized. “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services needs to ensure work authorization is terminated. ICE needs to be notified to pursue the removal of these deportable aliens. The Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service, as well as state agencies that issue benefits, all need to terminate those benefits,” she continued. “This protects federal and state tax dollars for Americans and lawful immigrants and will encourage more self-deportations.”

Vaughan also linked California’s treatment of non-domiciled CDL recipients to the state’s “sanctuary” status, shielding and enabling illegal immigrants. “The Trump administration should be looking for every possible tool and authority to crack down on sanctuaries. These jurisdictions undermine enforcement of our immigration laws and put communities at risk by releasing criminal aliens back to the streets instead of allowing ICE to take custody of them for removal,” she observed. “Sanctuary jurisdictions are a magnet for illegal immigration, and they force taxpayers to assume the costs of illegal immigration, such as medical care, welfare benefits, and schools, not to mention the cost of dealing with criminal aliens.”

“The administration should also deny law enforcement funding and any other type of federal awards that can reasonably be linked to sanctuary policies. They should deny tax-exempt status for bonds issued by sanctuaries, in order to signal to investors and the public that these jurisdictions are a credit risk and exercise poor governance,” Vaughan continued. “They should seek to have the sanctuary policies overturned by federal courts and take legal action against individual officials who obstruct enforcement, such as the judges who help illegal aliens avoid ICE. They should also support civil litigation on behalf of people who are harmed by the sanctuary policies.”

The conflict between the Trump administration and Newsom’s office over CDLs has only intensified over the course of the year, as foreign drivers with blue state-issued CDLs have caused numerous fatal traffic incidents. Last month, Indian national and illegal immigrant Jashanpreet Singh was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated after driving a freight truck into stalled traffic while under the influence of drugs, killing three and injuring another four. “My prayers are with the families of the victims of this tragedy,” Duffy said at the time. “It would have never happened if Gavin Newsom had followed our new rules. California broke the law, and now three people are dead and two are hospitalized. These people deserve justice. There will be consequences.”

Singh had been issued a CDL by California. Another Indian national and illegal immigrant, Harjinder Singh, killed three Americans when he made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike in his freight truck. He also had been issued CDLs by both Washington and California.