California Expected To Defy Federal Pressure, And Reissue 17,000 Non-Domiciled CDLs

California is expected to begin reissuing approximately 17,000 non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses that the state had planned to revoke following federal enforcement pressure. The decision comes despite ongoing corrective action requirements from FMCSA and raises fundamental questions about federal enforcement authority when a state openly defies compliance directives.

State transportation officials confirmed to sources that the Department of Motor Vehicles will begin restoring the contested licenses to immigrant drivers who received 60-day cancellation notices on November 6. The state has not clarified the specific process but points to the D.C. Circuit Court’s November 13 emergency stay of FMCSA’s interim final rule restricting non-domiciled CDL eligibility.

What California apparently misunderstands, or is choosing to ignore, is that the court stay addressed only the September 29 interim final rule. It did not address the separate compliance failures FMCSA documented during its 2025 Annual Program Review, which found that approximately 25% of California’s non-domiciled CDLs were improperly issued under regulations that existed before the emergency rule was ever published.

The federal government threatened to withhold more than $150 million in highway funding from California over these pre-existing violations. Those threats remain fully in effect regardless of the court’s stay of the new rule.