By Hank Russell
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) withheld more than $73 million in funding from the state of New York after the state failed to revoke commercial learner’s permits (CLPs) and commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that were illegally issued to non-domiciled drivers.
In December 2025, the FMCSA conducted an audit of New York’s practices in issuing CDLs to those who were not living in the country legally. This is what the agency found:
- Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law — a failure rate of over 53%.
- The Department of Motor Vehicles’ (DMV’s) systems defaulted to issuing eight-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired.
- New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.
According to the audit, the DMV intentionally disregarded the expiration of a foreign driver’s lawful presence in the U.S. This systemic failure allows the state to blindly grant long-term commercial driving privileges to foreigners that expire long after the expiration of their lawful presence in the country.
The audit also uncovered numerous cases where the New York DMV relied upon expired lawful presence documents to issue commercial licenses. This allowed foreign drivers whose lawful status in the United States had expired to obtain a CDL.
Upon learning of the audit’s results, the U.S. Department of Transportation demanded that New York take the following corrective measures to avoid funding being withheld:
- Immediately pause the issuance of all new, renewed, transferred, or upgraded non-domiciled CDLs or commercial learner’s permits (CLPs).
- Conduct a comprehensive internal audit to identify every non-domiciled license that was issued in violation of federal regulations and the policies, practices, and procedures that allowed for the issuance of non-compliant licenses.
- Immediately revoke all unexpired, noncompliant licenses and remove unqualified drivers from the road.
“The 2025 CDL audit uncovered that New York DMV’s license issuing practices are a grossly unacceptable deviation from federal regulations that have compromised the integrity of the state’s CDL program,” FMCSA Administrator Derek D. Barrs said at the time of the audit’s release. “New York must act immediately to comprehensively audit its CDL program and revoke every single illegally issued licenses.”
On March 13, FMCSA issued a formal response refuting the state’s claims of compliance and reiterating that New York had failed to complete required corrective actions, including the immediate rescission of all noncompliant non-domicile CLPs and CDLs.
After the state continued to refuse to remove these dangerous drivers from the road, FMCSA issued a final determination of substantial noncompliance and moved to withhold $73,502,543.This represents 4% of New York’s National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Program Block Grant funds.
“I promised the American people I would hold any state leader accountable for failing to keep them safe from unvetted, unqualified foreign drivers,” said Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “I’m delivering on that promise today by refusing to fund Governor Hochul’s dangerous, anti-American policies. My message to New York’s far left leadership is clear: families must be prioritized on American roads.”
“FMCSA’s mission is safety,” Barrs added. “That means ensuring that every commercial driver on the road is properly vetted and qualified. New York’s continued refusal to fix these failures undermines that mission, and we will not allow federal dollars to support a system that falls short of the law.”
This issue has become a political one. Long Island Life & Politics previously reported that Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman held a press conference in Pembroke calling for the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to stop issuing commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to applicants who lack proficiency in basic English. Blakeman — Hochul’s GOP gubernatorial opponent — said these drivers do not understand basic road signs, resulting in major fatalities.
Among the incidents Blakeman cited:
- Five people were killed and more than 40 people were hospitalized on August 22, 2025 when the driver of a tour bus, Bin Shao, lost control of the vehicle on Interstate 90 in Pembroke, New York and went into the median and on the southern shoulder before the bus overturned. Shao was later charged with five counts of manslaughter and five counts of criminally negligent homicide. It was reported that Shao required a Mandarin interpreter at his hearing. A passenger claimed they witnessed Shao trying to grab a water bottle, taking his eyes off the road. (The Hochul administration said Shao was able to speak and understand English and obtained his CDL under Republican governor George Pataki.)
- On December 9, 2025, Yisong Huang, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was driving a tour bus on Interstate 40 in Tennessee when he allegedly rear-ended a tractor-trailer, causing a chain reaction crash that killed one person and injured two others. Fox News reported that Huang was watching a video on his phone before the crash. He was charged with vehicular manslaughter.
LILP reached out to the Hochul administration. “These charges are a baseless attempt to attack blue states, because as everyone knows, New York simply follows federally-issued rules when issuing commercial driver’s licenses, something that even the Trump Administration has acknowledged,” Hochul spokesperson Sean Butler said in a statement. “This continues a year-long pattern of Secretary Duffy threatening to withhold money that keeps our roads, subways, and other infrastructure safe for New Yorkers. We will fight back, and once again we will win.”