As we’ve reported extensively, the Biden administration opened the floodgates so wide that thousands of illegal alien truckers ended up on American highways with commercial driver’s licenses that never should have been issued in the first place. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed that California alone handed out more than 17,000 of these CDLs — many to drivers who can’t read basic road signs or understand English well enough to follow safety instructions.
And now, just as Duffy is trying to crack down on this reckless practice, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily blocked his efforts on Thursday.
But Duffy isn’t backing down:
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blasted a court ruling Monday denying the Trump administration’s request to keep illegal immigrants from getting commercial driver’s licenses (CDL).
“We’re not going to take this lying down,” Duffy said on “The Ingraham Angle.”
“We are going to do all we can to protect the American people.”
Duffy said on the X platform:
People are dying from DANGEROUS foreign drivers operating big rigs on our roads. We’re fighting a federal court ruling that claims my emergency order to stop this crisis isn’t actually an emergency. Tell that to the families who have lost loved ones to these unqualified drivers! When American lives are on the line, we will do everything we can to protect the American people.
The judges’ reason for stopping the Trump administration from protecting Americans bordered on insane:
The court found that the federal government did not follow proper procedure when creating the new rule, or explain how the rule would promote safety. They also noted that Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data shows about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses belong to immigrants, though they only account for about 0.2% of fatal crashes.
Oh, okay. Only small percentage of illegal immigrants in the country illegally who illegally have drivers licenses and are illegally driving on our highways are killing Americans. Got it. No problem then.
In October, Duffy said that there may be close to 200,000 licenses given out to illegals: “There were 200,000 non-domiciled CDLs issued to foreigners. We think 194,000 of them were issued illegally and would not comply with our new rule.”
On Monday, Duffy told Laura Ingraham the fault was squarely on Biden (and, of course, whoever was actually running his administratation):
“Gave them work permits. Work authorization, and these folks went out and they got commercial driver’s licenses…” he said.
He also took a well-placed verbal potshot at the insanity of the judges’ ruling:
“People are dying,” he said.
“And we thought it was appropriate to protect Americans and we should have an emergency rule, not to go through the month-long process. We did that. The court has rolled us back and said, ‘Well, we’re not quite sure this is an emergency. We want to see more data.’ And I’m like… ‘Watch any show on television, and you’ll see the risk to the American people.’”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden, and the rest of the Democratic leadership created this dangerous mess — and real people have paid the price. When you hand out commercial driver’s licenses to individuals who aren’t legally here and in many cases can’t read road signs, tragedies are inevitable. This isn’t an accident; it’s the predictable result of reckless, ideologically driven policies that put political symbolism ahead of public safety.
Duffy is absolutely right to step in and try to fix the situation, no matter how many courts or entrenched bureaucrats throw roadblocks in his way.