The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's February Final Rule effectively ending CDL eligibility for non-citizens took effect Monday, March 16.
Now nearly 200,000 non-domiciled CDL holders won't have a chance to renew or update their CDLs, and FMCSA expects they'll all be gone within five years.
Already, thousands of non-domiciled CDL holders have had their licenses revoked, and hundreds have been nabbed in immigration raids on the interstates.
This is FMCSA's second attempt to kill non-domiciled CDLs. After the first attempt, an emergency Interim Final Rule issued in September, a non-domiciled CDL holder, owner-operator Jorge Rivera Lujan, sued the government and convinced a court in D.C. to pause the rule.
Despite that legal win, Rivera faced an uphill battle regaining his CDL in Utah. States across the country, after having just been mandated to shut down their non-domiciled CDL programs, were slow to respond to the court's pause. In fact, perhaps just one state, New Jersey, ever fully resumed issuance of non-domiciled CDLs.
When FMCSA issued the February rule, which largely just doubled down on the logic and specifics of the interim rule, Rivera and fellow plaintiffs filed suit again. As of Monday, the same court that gave him the win in November has not yet acted.
Even if Rivera's case succeeds in pausing the rule once more, states would be unlikely not spring back to issuing non-domiciled CDLs.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered at least eight -- Illinois, Utah, North Carolina, California, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota -- specifically to not issue non-domiciled CDLs pending program review and/or corrective action. Those individual orders to states would not be subject to any court ruling on Rivera's case.
Many of those states were known to issue large numbers of non-domiciled CDLs, and may represent those most eager to resume their programs. Nevada, as a counter example, soured on the prospect of non-domiciled CDLs altogether, phasing out the program in November.
FMCSA's February rule on non-domiciled CDLs zeroes in on its logic in eliminating the credential: There's no good way to vet most non-citizens and state licensing agencies just aren't that good at evaluating federal work authorization documents.
Under the new rule, only a few categories of business visa holders can be issued a non-domiciled CDL -- H-2A temporary ag workers, H-2B non-ag workers, and E-2 "treaty investors."
FMCSA estimates that of some 200,000 non-domiciled CDL drivers, the rule in effect today will eliminate approximately 194,000 CDL drivers.
Non-domiciled CDL holders have consistently argued the rule violates their civil rights, that they paid good money and worked hard to gain their credentials, and that the work of trucking is essential to the U.S. economy.
FMCSA over the course of the last year has argued that many "illegal aliens" that entered the country under the previous administration were given CDLs and, centrally, that all CDLs are not created equal.
FMCSA in December launched an unprecedented wave of in-person audits on CDL schools, eventually shutting down 500. Parallel efforts mandating English language proficiency enforcement for all drivers and revoking licenses from those who can't demonstrate English skills serve as a kind of de facto naturalization or citizenship requirement for commercial drivers.
Overdrive in December released survey results showing 88% of its mostly owner-operator readership supported DOT's move to ban non-domiciled CDLs. Predictably, non-domiciled CDL holders mostly did not support the measure, but even among that population there was 21% support, and 15% said the move would boost rates. 
Many of the voices calling for non-citizen inclusion in trucking have pointed to the persistent "driver shortage" narrative once loudly trumpeted by the American Trucking Associations.
[Related: Did DOT Secretary Duffy just kill trucking's 'driver shortage' narrative once and for all?]
But as DOT Secretary Sean Duffy made clear, DOT doesn't see things that way. "I think you'll see American truck drivers fill the space when we do what's right and take out these unlawful drivers," Duffy said in September.
