As red and blue states draw up battle lines in preparation for the big oral arguments over the U.S. Department of Transportation's non-domiciled CDL ban, the state of California has told the court it finds non-citizen commercial drivers safer than citizens.
California Department of Motor Vehicles' Research and Development Branch sent a report comparing non-citizen drivers to citizens as part of the state's amicus brief calling for the court to block the non-domiciled CDL ban. The brief includes some never-before-revealed facts about non-domiciled CDLs in blue states.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's February rulemaking, "Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers Licenses," would devastate the non-citizen driver community, the filing says.
In California, "less than 50 of the 65,000 people who previously held non-domiciled CDLs will be able to renew them after the Final Rule," the brief added. In Massachusetts "just one of the 1,600 individuals who currently hold non-domiciled CDLs will be able to renew it."
California, joined by 20 other states and D.C., argued to the court that while they favor roadway safety, FMCSA's "Final Rule does not ensure safe roads, as it deprives drivers lawfully present in the United States of commercial driving credentials" based on one factor alone: "their immigration status." Furthermore, the state said some non-citizen drivers have "decades of flawless records" and would likely lose their licenses now.
FMCSA, in its rulemaking efforts, routinely complained that states issued non-domiciled CDLs for periods much longer than an applicant's legal length of stay in the country.
But California and the other states argue that long tenure actually makes the drivers safer than U.S. citizens likely to replace them.
"To the extent that states can partially fill the resulting gaps with new drivers, they will necessarily be newly licensed and therefore less experienced -- potentially reducing roadway safety, counter to FMCSA’s stated goal," the brief states.
The filing includes California DMV's study, which puts some hard numbers to the safety issue -- something FMCSA has previously failed to do.
[Related: ‘No evidence’ non-domiciled CDLs bad for safety: Lawsuit to block DOT's new rule]
California DMV analysis of non-domiciled CDL driver safety
In November 2025, the California DMV examined the crash risk of CDL holders "as a function of citizenship versus temporary legal residency status," according to DMV analysis. After "a quick but thorough analysis of recent crash records" from 2022-'24, the "analysis indicates that temporary legally resident immigrants are involved in 20% fewer crashes overall, and 25% fewer fatal crashes, than U.S. citizens on a per licensed driver basis."
California DMV looked at a population of 602,257 U.S. citizen CDL holders and 69,250 temporary resident legal immigrants with CDLs, all of whom had current or recently expired (within three years) credentials.
It then looked at all police-reported crashes occurring in calendar years 2022, 2023, and 2024 and found 97,960 crash records from 85,394 individuals.
"We then compiled counts of the number of police-reported crashes, the number of crashes resulting in at least one fatality, and the number of crashes resulting in at least one injury," California DMV noted, looking at all crash numbers per 100 drivers. The result was the table below, showing "temporary resident legal immigrants have crash rates that are 20%-25% lower than CDL holders who are U.S. citizens."
Overall, California DMV found U.S. citizen CDL holders had a crash rate of 14.8 per 100 licensed drivers, compared to temporary resident legal immigrants’ rate of 11.9 per 100 licensed drivers.
The difference also was evident in crashes resulting in a fatality, with the fatal crash rate for U.S. citizen CDL holders at 0.12 per 100 drivers and the rate for temporary resident legal immigrants at 0.09 per 100 drivers during the same period.
California consistently refers to non-domiciled CDL drivers as "temporary resident legal immigrants," a stark contrast to DOT and DHS's branding of many thousands of drivers as "illegal immigrants."
The difference in terminology stems from politics.
Basically, immigrants are illegal if the executive branch says they are. DOT has only mentioned a few rare cases where states did not determine the legal status of non-domiciled CDL applicants.
[Related: New York the 'worst offender' for improper non-domiciled CDLs: DOT]
FMCSA in its most recent rulemaking effort to ban non-domiciled CDLs abandoned the safety justification, no longer citing individual crashes as reasons to bar most non-citizens from truck driving work.
Instead, FMCSA now points out an "unacceptable bifurcated standard in driver vetting," where non-citizen applicants don't have to produce 10 years of motor vehicle records, and state DMVs' inability to parse work permits.
The rule, which still allows non-citizen holders of H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visas to get non-domiciled CDLs, reasoned that the "consular vetting" done by the state department would catch any past dangerous driving behaviors.
Yet it's worth nothing that of the major deadly crashes caused by non-domiciled CDL holders, almost all cited in FMCSA's original rulemaking took place in 2025, which wouldn't be covered by California's study.
No state has fought harder to keep non-domiciled CDLs in play than California. Ultimately, the state lost some $200 million in federal funding for its long refusal to enforce English language proficiency regs and revoke wrongfully issued non-domiciled CDLs.
[Related: California capitulation: CHP finally enforcing English language proficiency roadside]
In 2025, an Overdrive survey of its readership found 49% in favor of banning non-domiciled CDLs on economic fairness or safety grounds. The full survey results can be downloaded below.
