California’s commercial licensing system just hit a major reset. This week, the state announced plans to revoke roughly 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses. The U.S. Department of Transportation says they “shouldn’t have been issued in the first place.”

The move follows months of political tension and a nationwide audit triggered by a deadly crash in Florida involving an undocumented semi-truck driver.

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said the revocations stem from violations of existing state law, not immigration status

But he stopped short of giving specifics.

Meanwhile, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy repeatedly frames the issue as “proof” that California let unauthorized, “dangerous” drivers behind the wheel of semis and buses.

In a press release, the U.S. DOT stated that California officials were clearly not intending on enforcing the federal mandate requiring drivers speak English.

His department already withheld $40 million in federal funds from the state.

In doing so, it threatened to cut another $160 million. To relieve the pressure, the agency insists California must prove it’s enforcing federal English-language and eligibility rules for commercial licenses.

New federal rules, announced in September, now limit commercial driver’s license eligibility to just three types of visa holders

H-2A for agricultural workers, H-2B for temporary non-agricultural workers, and E-2 for investors.

That narrows the pool from about 200,000 noncitizen commercial drivers nationwide to around 10,000 who’ll still qualify under the revised guidelines. That’s a 95% slash.

States must now verify every applicant’s immigration status through a federal database, and any new commercial license will automatically expire when the holder’s visa does.

Newsom’s office argued the 17,000 licenses in question were issued legally under the guidance of the Department of Homeland Security before the new rules even existed

Each driver, they said, had a valid federal work authorization at the time.

Still, affected drivers are being notified their licenses will expire in 60 days.

The situation recalls other recent licensing problems uncovered across the country

Earlier this year, we reported on a clerk’s office in Kentucky. A whistleblower said coworkers sold driver’s licenses under the table for $200 apiece, leading to nearly 2,000 revocations and a criminal probe.

In another case, a trucker in Oklahoma was caught hauling freight with a valid New York CDL issued to “No Name Given,” a clerical breakdown that Homeland Security later called “a gap in state verification.”

California’s sweep isn’t tied to fraud on that scale, but it underscores how fragile the licensing system can be when enforcement lags behind political battles.

In any case, today, 17,000 truckers face losing the credentials that keep them employed, while state and federal leaders continue to argue over who’s actually to blame.

Driver’s licensing systems are never perfect, no matter the state. But the trucking, transportation, and construction industries are sure to suffer from their suddenly shrunk driver pool.