California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses given to immigrants after discovering the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the U.S., state officials said Wednesday.
Later, his office revealed the state law it was referring to was one that requires the licenses expire on or before a person’s legal status to be in the United State ends, as reported to the DMV.
So what really happened here? Immigrants with visas that allow them to work in the United States for a period of time were issued licenses by California which had expiration dates later than they should have. What should be happening here is reissuance of corrected documents with the proper expiration date, because California fucked it up in the first place.
What should not be happening is punishing people who have followed the law.
I don’t understand… How would that make them suffer?
/s
What should be happening here is reissuance of corrected documents with the proper expiration date, because California fucked it up in the first place.
California politicians love incarceration far more than functional bureaucracy.
What should not be happening is punishing people who have followed the law.
There’s too much money to be made press ganging convicts. But don’t worry. Once we’ve got everyone fitted with an ankle bracelet and earning $.15/hr, we’ll get them all back out on the road again. Same as we’ve done with California fire fighters and road workers.
The financial ramifications of ending prison slavery have been a major hurdle to its abolition. In California, an estimate from 2022 suggests that ending the practice would cost the state $150 billion annually.
The new rules for commercial driver’s licenses that Duffy announced in September make getting them extremely hard for immigrants because only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible. States will also have to verify an applicant’s immigration status in a federal database. The licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner.
Under the new rules, only 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens who have commercial licenses would qualify for them, which would only be available to drivers who have an H-2a, H-2b or E-2 visa. H-2a is for temporary agricultural workers while H-2b is for temporary nonagricultural workers, and E-2 is for people who make substantial investments in a U.S. business. But the rules won’t be enforced retroactively, so those 190,000 drivers will be allowed to keep their commercial licenses at least until they come up for renewal.
Those new requirements were not in place at the time the 17,000 California licenses were issued. But those drivers were given notices that their licenses will expire in 60 days.
So most likely, they will not be able to renew, even if they have a valid work visa that would’ve enabled them to keep their existing CDL if the expiration date had been correct.
Sooo… it’s just an excuse to enact part of this law sooner, against people who otherwise would’ve been grandfathered in (and did nothing wrong), and do some damage to the economy of a blue state?
They’re truckers, it’s going to damage the economy of the entire country
Well this will surely make goods more affordable!
/s
That won’t have too much of a consequence, no sir.
Is this some kind of ploy to force these guys to pay the gov to regain their license or?
