New Mexico MVD stops issuing commercial driver’s licenses to certain noncitizens
New Mexico’s Motor Vehicle Division will no longer issue or renew commercial driver’s licenses or learner’s permits to certain foreign-born drivers, according to a recent news release.
The announcement last week came about a week after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued emergency interim rules seeking to crack down on what it says are immigrants illegally, and unsafely, driving semi trailers on nationwide highways. The MVD says its change announced Thursday complies with those interim rules.
According to the MVD, the division will only issue commercial licenses or permits to foreign nationals who have valid, unexpired foreign passports that have an I-94 form documenting their most recent entrance into the United States.
That is also true for those with certain employment-based, non-immigrant visas — namely, the H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visas — according to an updated form MVD published this month listing the documents required to receive a CDL.
The change mirrors those that have occurred in other states, and it comes after federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy publicly threatened to withhold funding from New Mexico and two other states if they didn’t comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring commercial truck drivers to be proficient in English.
New Mexico, Washington and Florida were all targeted with the funding cut threat because Duffy accused all three states of playing a role in a fatal crash involving a foreign truck driver in Florida. In that case, a Florida driver, an immigrant from India who did not have permanent legal authority to be in the country, made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike, caused a crash that killed three people in another vehicle, according to local reports.
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The driver had a commercial license from California and Washington, and had been pulled over for speeding in New Mexico prior to crashing in Florida, Duffy said in August.
The interim rules the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published said five fatal crashes this year, including the one in Florida, involved “non-domiciled CDL holders,” which typically refers to foreign-born commercial truck drivers.
New Mexico has issued 204 CDLs and commercial learner’s permits to “non-domiciled” people in the state. According to federal data, about 37,178 drivers have active CDLs in New Mexico.
After Duffy threatened to withhold $7 million in funding from New Mexico, a spokesperson for Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham told Source New Mexico that the state’s “thorough and federally compliant process for issuing CDLs” requires English proficiency.
“We believe that a full review of the incidents in question will demonstrate that New Mexico is in full compliance with federal law and that New Mexico State Police are effectively enforcing safety regulations on our roadways,” spokesperson Michael Coleman said.
