The Trump administration is withholding $160 million from California after the state refused to cancel commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants before a Monday deadline, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Wednesday.
What happened: The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wrote in a Wednesday letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and the California Department of Motor Vehicles that the state had failed to meet federal requirements for issuing licenses to legal immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers.
The move comes after a DMV spokesperson told POLITICO on Tuesday that the department and FMCSA had discussed an extension beyond Duffy’s Monday deadline to give federal regulators more time to review the state’s program.
“It’s reckoning day for Gavin Newsom and California,” Duffy said in a statement. “Our demands were simple: follow the rules, revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers, and fix the system so this never happens again.”
