DOT Secretary Sean Duffy on Monday threatened to withhold $30M in federal funding from Minnesota, saying that one third of the state’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration were issued illegally.
Minnesota now joins Pennsylvania and California as states under special orders from DOT to shut down and overhaul their systems for issuing CDLs to non-citizens. All three face the loss of federal funding.
Minnesota, like most states Overdrive surveyed in July, has been issuing a steadily increasing number of non-domiciled CDLs over the last few years. In 2024, the state issued 1,436 non-domiciled CDLs out of 87,635, or about 1.6%. In 2018, those numbers were just 374 out of 76,513 or 0.4%.
As of April 29, 2025, non-domiciled CDLs made up more than 3% of all CDLs issued in the state this year.
"Minnesota has 30 days to come into compliance and revoke the illegally issued licenses -- or risk losing up to $30.4 million in federal highway funding," DOT wrote in a press release. "After months of deadly crashes caused by illegal foreign drivers, the Department is cracking down on states that have failed to follow the law."
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Preliminary Determination of Noncompliance letter sent to the state said that as of September, the state had 2,117 non-domiciled CLPs or CDLs that remain unexpired. FMCSA sampled 75 records of Minnesota non-domiciled CDL holders and found 25 "failed to comply with requirements in 49 CFR Parts 383 and 384."
An annual review of Minnesota's CDL issuance "uncovered evidence of systemic policy, procedural, and programming errors," FMCSA wrote in the letter, signed by the agency's new administrator, Derek Barrs.
FMCSA said 16 of the driver records sampled showed that Minnesota issued a non-domiciled CDL for a period of validity that exceeded the driver’s lawful presence documents, three went to citizens of Mexico and Canada, three went to legal permanent residents of the U.S. (eligible for standard CDLs), and five went to drivers whose legal presence in the country wasn't verified by the state.
Now the state must pause all non-domiciled CDL issuance, renewals and upgrades, and completely audit its systems and every single non-domiciled CDL issued, reporting results back to FMCSA. If not, the state risks losing $30 million in federal funding this year, with the potential to lose another $60 million next year.
“Our audit exposes yet another example of foreigners taking advantage of Minnesota services under Governor Walz’s watch,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens -- endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration. The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans.”
Pennsylvania and California provided detailed responses and vigorous refutations of DOT's non-compliance letters. California, in particular, said that federal regulations don't actually forbid the state from issuing CDLs for longer than someone is legally allowed to stay in the country, nor do they prohibit CDLs for Canadian and Mexican citizens.
DOT's moves against the three states come after its blanket rule banning non-domiciled CDL issuance for all but a few categories of business visa holders got shut down by a court. DOT's moves against what it called "illegal" trucking operations has expanded in recent days to removing thousands of CDL schools from FMCSA's Trainining Provider Registry and changing the vetting process for ELDs.
[Related: 'Every foreign truck driver's worst nightmare': Courts can't stop Trump, DOT's immigration crackdown]
“Minnesota is openly and blatantly defying our rules, plain and simple,” said FMCSA Administrator Barrs. “Under the Trump Administration, states have two choices: meet our standards or face the consequences. Following the law is not optional.”
