The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday decided on a lawsuit seeking to block DOT’s emergency final rulemaking that sought to strip 200,000 non-citizens of non-domiciled CDLs.
The court ordered "that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s interim final rule" be "administratively stayed pending further order of the court."
The pause will "give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motions for stay pending review and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of those motions," the court's statement said. It’s unclear how long that will take.
The decision followed DOT’s September 29 emergency final rule tightening eligibility for non-citizens of the U.S. to get commercial driving privileges. DOT found widespread lapses in CDL issuance protocols around the country and cited five deadly crashes as well as unknowns around non-citizen applicants as motivation for the rule.
A lawsuit filed two weeks later came on behalf of an owner-operator who came to the U.S. at two years old and now runs a small fleet; the suit sought to invalidate the rule as discriminatory based on citizenship status.
Wendy Liu, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, which brought the case, officially titled Rivera Lujan v. FMCSA, said FMCSA will start informing state licensing agencies about the change tomorrow.
“The court’s order gives drivers across the country a chance to continue working and supporting their families and communities," Liu told Overdrive. "We understand that FMCSA will inform state licensing agencies tomorrow morning about the stay, so that they know that FMCSA’s rule is not in effect and should not be applied. We are glad that the court put FMCSA’s unlawful rule on hold temporarily, and we hope that the court will continue to put the rule on hold while the lawsuit proceeds.”
A DOT spokesperson gave a brief comment on the stay.
"This is not a ruling on the merits of the case," the DOT spokesperson told Overdrive. "Secretary Duffy will continue working to keep unqualified, foreign drivers off American roads."
The legal petitioners explained their case at length in the court filings, and DOT had a chance to respond.
As of Monday, the court has sided with the petitioners and many non-domiciled CDL drivers who complained the move violated their rights.
DOT Secretary Sean Duffy in a press conference on October 30 said that most states had complied with the new rule demanding a pause of non-domiciled CDL issuance and a total review from all 50 states. But some jurisdictions, notably the state of California, had not.
On the same day DOT rolled out the new emergency rulemaking, it issued a notice to California that the state was substantially out of compliance with federal CDL issuance regulations. A month later, California vigorously denied those claims, but admitted to several technical faults in its credentialing system around non-domiciled CDLs. It found some 20,000 that did not comply with its own state laws.
California’s response raises a handful of legal and practical challenges to DOT’s rulemaking.
The lawsuit came from unions representing government workers and teachers, as well as a few truck drivers. Trucking trade orgs almost unanimously supported the rule and raised no legal challenges.
Drivers, do you support DOT's move to ban non-domiciled CDLs for nearly 200,000 non-citizen drivers? If you haven't yet, weigh in via Overdrive's survey below.
