LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was confronted on the floor of the Mid-America Trucking Show by a DACA recipient truck driver who is set to lose his commercial driver’s license under the Trump administration’s non-domiciled CDL rule. In the moment, Duffy told the driver he “shouldn’t” lose his CDL. DOT has since clarified that he will.
Duffy had just finished a brief speech at the show when the driver approached him directly, surrounded by cameras and media. The full exchange, as transcribed by Overdrive, went as follows:
Driver: “I’m actually a non-domiciled. I’m on the DACA. I’ve been here since 2001. I’m in jeopardy to lose my CDL.”
Duffy: “The problem is not that you’re non-domiciled CDL. We have rules in place in how the license should be issued. This is a space where you came into the country, you’re DACA, you’ve been here a while. If you came into the country and you’ve been here a year and a half, and a great way to make a living is to say, ‘I’m going to get a Commercial Driver’s License,’ and you paid and didn’t go through a school because it was a CDL mill, and you have a third party tester that didn’t actually test you for skills and you get a license, and I have people dying, I’m going to change the rules.”
Driver: “I totally agree.”
Duffy: “It’s not every non-domiciled CDL, what I’m telling you is a lot of the problems have been in non-domiciled CDLs.”
Driver: “And I’ve seen it for the last four or five years. I totally agree with all that.”
Duffy: “The people that do things right and follow the rules, you’re not going to see problems. This is the subset where we’re seeing a lot of the issues in the country. So I’m going to clean it out and make it work.”
Driver: “Will it still affect us though? Because I’m in jeopardy of losing my CDL.”
Duffy: “Well, it shouldn’t.”
What DOT Said Afterward
Despite Duffy’s comment on the show floor, DOT clarified its position to Overdrive after the exchange. The rule does apply to DACA recipients. Duffy’s “it shouldn’t” comment appears to have been a misstatement in the noisy, crowded environment of the show floor.
In a follow-up statement, Duffy said: “The Department of Transportation’s new rule restores integrity and consistency to how non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses are issued across the country. Moving forward, eligibility is limited to individuals in clearly defined visa categories where work authorization and identity can be reliably verified through federal systems. This ensures that every driver operating a commercial vehicle on American roads meets a uniform standard of lawful presence, accountability, and safety. FMCSA will continue working with states and federal partners to enforce these standards and keep our roadways safe.”
The Broader Legal Fight
The confrontation reflects a larger legal dispute currently before the courts. Another DACA recipient, Jorge Rivera Lujan, has filed a lawsuit against FMCSA asking for a pause of the non-domiciled CDL ban. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is expected to issue its ruling any day.
DACA recipients present a specific challenge to FMCSA’s rationale for the ban. The agency has argued that most immigrants lack verifiable driving records and that only certain visa holders go through the State Department’s consular vetting process. DACA recipients, however, have often lived in the U.S. for many years and do have driving records on file with state DMVs. Despite that, FMCSA’s audit of states’ non-domiciled CDL issuance found systemic non-compliance and the agency appears to have lost confidence in states’ ability to process work authorization documents — including those presented by DACA holders.
Exchange transcript courtesy of Overdrive.
📸 Image(s) used under fair use for news reporting.
