Labrador Letter: Defending Federal Rule Blocking Illegal Immigrants from Obtaining Commercial Drivers Licenses

Dear Friends,

Last August, an illegal immigrant named Harjinder Singh, licensed to drive by both Washington and California, attempted an illegal U-turn across the Florida Turnpike in an eighteen-wheeler. He could not read or understand the road signs warning him against it and it led to the death of three people.

Idaho did not issue Singh’s CDL, but he was free to drive on Idaho’s roads. That’s why Idaho needed to act. Commercial trucking is inherently interstate. A license issued in Sacramento or Albany puts a driver on the same highway system Idaho families use every day. That’s why my office joined a 23-state coalition led by Florida in filing an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit, defending a federal rule that cracks down on states issuing commercial driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants in violation of federal law.

The case is Lujan v. FMCSA. The Final Rule at issue authorizes states to grant CDLs to foreign-domiciled applicants only if they hold H-2A, H-2B, or E-2 status. Because applicants for those visas undergo screening by multiple federal agencies, any unsafe driving history comes to light before a state can issue a commercial license. That is the safeguard some states have chosen to ignore.

California gave a limited CDL to Jashanpreet Singh, an illegal immigrant who entered the country in 2022. Last October, California removed the limits on his license in direct defiance of a federal emergency rule issued the month before. Weeks later, Singh plowed his semi-truck into a row of slowed vehicles, killing three people. New York issued a CDL to Yisong Huang after he had already admitted to Border Patrol that he was in the country illegally. Huang later caused a fatal pileup while watching a video on his phone, and federal auditors found that over half of the non-domiciled CDLs New York had issued violated federal law. Pennsylvania licensed Bekzhan Beishekeev, who entered the country through a process federal officials classify as illegal immigration. He swerved his semi-truck into oncoming traffic and killed four people. And in Oregon, an illegal immigrant named Rajinder Kumar, licensed by California, jackknifed his trailer across both lanes of a two-lane road and killed two newlyweds.

These crashes are the reason the Final Rule exists. As Justice Thomas wrote in his dissent when the Supreme Court declined to hear Florida’s suit against California and Washington over their lax CDL enforcement, the country is facing what he called “the disturbing phenomenon of illegal-alien truck drivers causing fatal accidents on the road.” With that legal path closed to the states, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration stepped in to enforce its own statutory duty to ensure the fitness of every driver operating a commercial vehicle.

Keeping people safe on the roads is one of a state’s core obligations, but CDL regulation is an area where states have never had full control. Congress put the federal government in charge of setting who qualifies to drive a commercial truck, and states are supposed to be able to count on that vetting process actually happening before a license gets issued. When a state ignores that system and issues licenses anyway, it puts the lives of Americans in danger.

The D.C. Circuit already denied a request to block the rule while litigation continues, finding the challengers unlikely to succeed on the merits. Oral argument is scheduled for September 15, 2026. My office will keep standing with Florida and this coalition to see the rule upheld.

States like California, New York, and Washington have skirted federal law to issue commercial licenses to illegal immigrants who can’t read English or our road signs, and families have paid for it with their lives. The Trump Administration is finally enforcing the law those states ignored for years, and my office stands behind that effort. Idaho will not let liberal policies put unqualified drivers behind the wheel of eighteen-wheelers on our highways.

Best regards,