California announced Tuesday that it will delay the revocation of 17,000 commercial driver's licenses held by immigrant truckers until March, setting up a showdown with the federal government over immigration enforcement and highway safety.

The Department of Motor Vehicles said the 17,000 migrant truck drivers whose licenses had been scheduled for revocation on January 5 can now keep them for 60 additional days, giving drivers until March 6 to retake tests and complete whatever steps are necessary to remain in compliance.

The delay came one week after immigrant rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the California DMV, alleging that immigrant truck drivers were being unfairly targeted and that licenses were being canceled for minor paperwork discrepancies.

"Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy — our supply chains don't move, and our communities don't stay connected without them," said DMV Director Steve Gordon in a statement.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded by threatening to cut $160 million in federal funding to California if the state does not meet the January 5 deadline to revoke the licenses.

"California does NOT have an 'extension' to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads," Duffy posted on X.

Federal pressure prompted initial revocations

California only sent out notices to invalidate the licenses after Duffy pressured the state to ensure that immigrants who are in the country illegally are not granted commercial driver's licenses.

A nationwide audit revealed what the Department of Transportation called "systemic policy, procedural, and programming errors" in California's non-domiciled CDL program. The audit found problems including licenses that remained valid long after an immigrant's authorization to be in the country expired or licenses where the state could not prove it checked a driver's immigration status.

Duffy had already withheld $40 million in federal funding from California, which he said was not enforcing English proficiency requirements for truckers. California is the only state that does not enforce English language requirements for commercial drivers.

The Transportation Department has been prioritizing the issue since a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn on a Florida highway in August and caused a crash that killed three people. In October, another collision involving a trucker whose immigration status is in dispute killed three people just outside Los Angeles.

"Three innocent people were killed in Florida because Gavin Newsom's California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an illegal alien a Commercial Driver's License—this state of governance is asinine," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement announcing the arrest of the Florida driver by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "How many more innocent people must die before Gavin Newsom stops playing games with the safety of the American public?"

Immigrant groups file lawsuit

The Sikh Coalition, a national group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on December 22 on behalf of the California drivers. The lawsuit alleged that the DMV failed to offer proper recourse for affected drivers, refused to renew or issue new commercial driver's licenses, and violated their rights.

The drivers in both the fatal Florida crash and the California crash were Sikhs. An estimated 150,000 Punjabi Sikhs work in the American trucking industry, with the majority based on the West Coast, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"The state of California must help these 20,000 drivers because, at the end of the day, the clerical errors threatening their livelihoods are of the CA-DMV's own making," said Munmeeth Kaur, legal director of the Sikh Coalition. "If the court does not issue a stay, we will see a devastating wave of unemployment that harms individual families, as well as the destabilization of supply chains on which we all rely."

Kaur called the delay "an important step towards alleviating the immediate threat that these drivers are facing to their lives and livelihoods."

Critics have contended that drivers should not be punished for clerical errors made by the DMV.

Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers nationwide, but these non-domiciled licenses that immigrants can receive represent only about 5% of all commercial driver's licenses, or approximately 200,000 drivers.

State and federal officials clash

Governor Gavin Newsom responded to Duffy on X, claiming the Transportation Department had agreed to a deadline extension over a week ago and calling the situation "federal mismanagement."

Duffy disputed this characterization. "Gavin Newsom is lying," he posted. "The deadline to revoke illegally issued, unvetted foreign trucker licenses is still January 5."

California officials said they are working to make sure the federal Transportation Department is satisfied with the reforms they have put in place. The state had planned to resume issuing commercial driver's licenses in mid-December, but the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration blocked that.

The Transportation Department also proposed new restrictions that would severely limit which noncitizens could get a license, but a federal judge put the new rules on hold in November.

Manpreet Kaur, the vice mayor of Bakersfield, a hub for trucking in California's Central Valley with a large concentration of the Punjabi Sikh community, said truckers have been unfairly targeted in the political dispute between state policy and federal rules.

"It's one small positive step forward," she said of the delay. "We were extremely relieved to see this within the community here in Bakersfield."

Industry response and legal questions

Trucking trade groups have praised the federal effort to remove unqualified drivers who should not have licenses or cannot speak English from the road. The groups have also applauded the Transportation Department's moves to go after questionable commercial driver's license training schools.

A federal review found that 44% of U.S. trucking schools do not comply with government rules.

Trade groups that once complained about driver shortages and welcomed immigrant drivers now say the shortages no longer exist because of the freight recession and are supportive of the federal crackdown on foreign drivers.

The 60-day extension could be used to conduct more thorough screening, such as verifying immigration status, confirming qualifications, and documenting the process, said Tray Gober of LGR Law Firm.

Matt Cartwright, a transportation and personal injury attorney and former U.S. representative from Pennsylvania, said he believes all 17,000 truckers will be able to take the commercial driver's license test by March.

"The safe drivers will have no problem passing," Cartwright said.

However, attorney Doug Burnetti, who has been closely following the policy changes, noted that a new legal issue may emerge from the reapplication process.

"By submitting to the new rules, immigrants with revoked licenses are giving up any right to sue for improper revocation," Burnetti said. "I suspect that may be fact-specific and depend on each case, but if I were representing the federal government, I would argue that reapplication under the new rules waives any objections to the revocation under the old rules."

The truckers, on the other hand, would argue they had no choice but to reapply to try to get their licenses back.

"That's an interesting question that will ultimately have to be resolved by a judge," Burnetti said.