California immigrant truck drivers stare down looming deadline: 20,000 could lose licenses
Nearly 20,000 non-domiciled commercial truck drivers in the state of California could see their licenses revoked as a Department of Motor Vehicles deadline looms.
CBS News Sacramento first reported the news in November of last year, which the state said came following the discovery that the expiration dates on the licenses passed the immigrant drivers' legally allotted time to stay in the U.S.
Thursday, civil rights groups and the legal representatives for a class of commercial drivers have filed for an emergency order, asking the California DMV to pause its cancellations of commercial driver's licenses set to occur Friday, March 6.
"These workers did everything the law required of them, yet they're the ones being punished for a bureaucratic failure they didn't create. The state cannot rip away people's licenses first and figure out a fix later. These cancellations must be stopped now," said senior attorney Katherine Zhao of the Asian Law Caucus.
The caucus and the Sikh Coalition had originally filed a lawsuit in December 2025, alleging California did not follow the proper process and broke state law by revoking the licenses.
A California judge ruled that the drivers be allowed to keep their CDLs temporarily.
In response, the DMV extended its deadline to March 6, with an urgent notice to drivers posted on their website reading: "If you believe you got a cancellation notice by mistake, call the DMV at (916) 306‑5153. Ask for a review of the legal presence documents the DMV has on file. The DMV will check if the expiration date on those documents is the same as, or later than, the expiration date on your CDL. If the DMV finds the notice was sent by mistake, they will send you a correction notice. You must ask for a review before March 6, 2026."
"People, they are just, they're scared," said Raman Dhillon, CEO of the North American Punjabi Trucking Association.
Caught in the middle of the CDL back-and-forth fight are local truck drivers who say they are in the country legally and have clean driving records.
They call the DMV inconsistencies a clerical error on their end that drivers should not lose their livelihoods over.
"So, pretty much, they are out of business with one click. And also, there's a lot of bankruptcies going on because of this, because they literally cannot afford those payments there. Because these trucks are expensive," said Dhillon.
It's a move being pushed for by the Trump administration following two high-profile crashes involving drivers from the Greater Sacramento region.
A 21-year-old man from Yuba City was charged with three counts of vehicular manslaughter after a highway crash in Southern California -- and a 28-year-old from Stockton is accused of making an illegal U-turn that caused a deadly crash in Florida.
Both drivers entered the U.S. illegally.
"One or two apples can be bad, not a whole community, you know?" said Amarjit Singh, who has operated his own trucking business in Sacramento for five years.
In an open letter to a Sacramento newspaper, he said the DMV should not sideline lawful commercial truck drivers.
Singh is also the co-founder of Freedom Drivers, an alliance of immigrant truckers.
"We are stressing out, my whole family," Singh, a father of two, told CBS Sacramento. "Overnight, it is going to destroy everything and all my hard work from the last five years, you know, what I invest in my money. So, it's a hardship for me."
He claims clerical errors made by the state are singling out many drivers who are in the country legally, like himself.
His license is one of thousands facing cancellation Friday.
"The issue is a date mismatch between my work authorization and the way it was recorded on my license, and that discrepancy is now being used as grounds to cancel my license," said Singh.
Dhillon says he expects the CDL cuts will drive up the cost of truck loads in California and could impact businesses statewide.
"So I think, overall, all these things are going to affect the economy, affect everybody's pocket," said Dhillon.
The civil rights groups behind the emergency motion on Thursday say the California DMV has not provided a fair or clear process explaining how impacted drivers can immediately reapply for their licenses. It is why they say they turned to the courts for another pause.
The federal government announced in January that it would withhold $160 million in federal highway funds from the state of California as punishment for extending the expiration dates to March 6.
Stay with CBS Sacramento for updates on this story.
