Trump administration threatens to withhold $75M from Pennsylvania over immigrant truck drivers

The Trump administration threatened Thursday to withhold nearly $75 million in funding if Pennsylvania does not immediately revoke what the administration claims are illegally issued commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants.

The move by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to target Pennsylvania follows similar action against California. Both states are run by Democratic governors who have criticized President Donald Trump’s administration and who are viewed as potential top-shelf contenders to be the party’s 2028 presidential nominee.

Duffy has made it a priority to scrutinize how the licenses are issued since August, when a tractor-trailer driver not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. That incident thrust the issue into the public’s consciousness.

In a statement Thursday, DOT spokesperson Danna Almeida said all states were being reviewed.

It’s unclear how many people would be affected in Pennsylvania. In any case, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro ‘s administration said the federal government didn’t identify a single commercial driver’s license issued to someone who wasn’t eligible.

Still, a letter Thursday from the Republican administration to Shapiro cited an audit that found two out of 150 people whose licenses exceeded their lawful presence in the country.

In four cases it had reviewed, the federal government said Pennsylvania provided no evidence that it had required noncitizens to provide legitimate proof that they were legally in the country at the time they got the license.

The Trump administration called on Pennsylvania to stop issuing new, renewed and transferred commercial driver’s licenses and permits, as well as conduct an audit to identify those licenses whose expirations exceed the driver’s lawful stay in the U.S.

It is also asking the state to void noncompliant licenses and remove those drivers from the road. The administration said approximately 12,400 noncitizen drivers hold an unexpired commercial learner’s permit or commercial driver’s license issued by Pennsylvania.

The governors of California and Pennsylvania — Gavin Newsom and Shapiro — are tough critics of Trump, and both have been repeated targets of Trump’s administration.

Shapiro’s administration said the state transportation department ceased issuing commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published a regulation in late September that would severely limit which immigrants can get one.

A federal court has put the rule on hold for now, but Shapiro’s administration said its transportation department still hasn’t resumed issuing what are called “non-domiciled CDLs.”

Pennsylvania’s transportation department said Thursday that it follows federal rules for verifying an immigrant applicant’s lawful presence in the country by checking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s database.

But Shapiro this week suggested that DHS was falling short by failing to properly maintain that database, which states use to check an immigrant’s legal status before issuing a driver’s license to a noncitizen.

His comments came after DHS said it had arrested an Uzbek national with a commercial driver’s license issued by Pennsylvania. The man, who had a work authorization granted in 2024, was wanted in his home country for belonging to a terrorist organization, the department said.

But Shapiro said the state transportation department checked the federal database over the summer before issuing a CDL to the man, and he was authorized to get one. The state rechecked the database this week, and it still listed him as qualified to get a CDL, Shapiro said.

“They clearly are not minding the shop, and they’ve gotta get better, because every single state in the country relies on this database when making a determination as to who qualifies for a CDL. We relied on the feds before issuing this one,” Shapiro said.

California, which said it would revoke 17,000 licenses, is the only state the administration has acted against because it was the first one where an audit was completed. The government shutdown delayed reviews in other states, but the Transportation Department is urging all of them to tighten their standards. ___ Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey, and Levy from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writer Josh Funk contributed.