California’s highways are turning into deadly battlegrounds, and Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration is squarely in the crosshairs for a dangerous licensing fiasco.
Under Newsom’s watch, the state has become the nation’s top issuer of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to foreign nationals, with federal regulators now linking these questionable practices to fatal accidents and threatening to slash highway funding over rampant noncompliance.
Let’s rewind to the numbers: California has handed out roughly 60,000 non-domiciled CDLs, but a Department of Transportation audit found a staggering 25% were issued improperly.
Some of these licenses, shockingly, remain valid for years despite expired immigration documents—a bureaucratic blunder that’s more than just paperwork gone wrong.
Federal authorities have pointed to these lax standards as a direct contributor to tragic crashes on American roads, a charge that’s hard to ignore when lives are on the line.
On June 27, 2025, California issued a restricted CDL to Jashanpreet Singh, a 20-year-old asylum seeker, limiting him to intrastate driving, which seemed like a cautious step at the time.
Fast forward to September 26, 2025, when Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy dropped a bombshell, notifying California of “significant compliance failures” and demanding a halt to non-domiciled CDL issuance until unexpired, non-compliant licenses are revoked or reissued under tougher federal rules.
That same day, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rolled out an emergency rule, tightening eligibility for non-domiciled CDLs by excluding asylum seekers and mandating strict immigration status checks—a clear signal that enough is enough.
But did California listen? On October 15, 2025, Singh turned 21, and the state’s DMV upgraded his license, scrapping the intrastate restriction without adhering to the new federal standards.
Just days later, on October 21, 2025, tragedy struck near Los Angeles when Singh, reportedly under the influence of drugs, crashed a semi-truck into stopped vehicles, killing three and hospitalizing two—a preventable disaster if rules had been followed.
Had California honored the emergency rule, Singh’s asylum seeker status would have disqualified him from the upgrade, potentially sparing innocent lives from this horrific outcome.
Secretary Duffy didn’t mince words on this catastrophe, stating, “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.”
Duffy’s frustration is palpable, and his additional warning resonates: “We have states that are giving out CDLs like candy… they have allowed people who should NEVER have a CDL… operating an 80,000 pound Big Rig on an American road.”
Across the nation, similar incidents—like a fatal crash in Tennessee involving a Chinese national with a New York-issued CDL who couldn’t speak English—underscore the urgent need for reform, while Texas, once the worst offender, has cracked down and dropped to fifth in problematic CDL issuances.
With Secretary Duffy threatening to withhold hundreds of millions in highway funds, California must decide whether to prioritize progressive policies over public safety—a choice that could define Newsom’s legacy as either a defender of ideology or a guardian of the roadways.
