South Dakota Withholding CDLs from Non-Citizens, Despite Lack of Evidence of Safety Risk

The U.S. Department of Transportation has threatened to withhold $13.2 million from South Dakota after an audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) found inconsistencies in the state’s licensing program. The audit identified instances in which licenses were valid longer than a driver’s legal work permit and cases in which licenses were issued to ineligible Canadian citizens.

In response to the federal crackdown led by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the South Dakota Department of Public Safety has temporarily halted the issuance of “non-domiciled” CDLs. State officials confirmed they have already corrected six specific inconsistencies flagged by investigators and are currently reviewing administrative controls to ensure full compliance with federal standards [Steve Jurrens, “South Dakota Faces $13 Million Threat over CDL Licenses,” Northeast Radio, 2026.01.09].

As usual, this punishment of immigrants is based on baloney. Fatal truck crashes make up less than 10% of all highway fatalities, and in those grisly encounters, you’re far more likely to get creamed by a truck driven by one of your fellow Americans than by a properly licensed friend from across the border:

NHTSA’s preliminary estimates for the first half of 2025 show an estimated 17,140 people lost their lives in motor vehicle crashes from January through June, down from 18,680 fatalities during the same period in 2024. This represents a substantial 8.2% decline in roadway deaths, occurring even as vehicle miles traveled increased by 12.1 billion miles during the first half of 2025.

…The DOT’s emergency action is based on what can only be described as statistically insignificant data. Since the beginning of the 2025 calendar year, FMCSA has identified at least five fatal crashes involving non-domiciled CDL holders. To put this in perspective, with 1,600 fatal truck crashes reported through July 2025, these five crashes represent just 0.31% of all fatal truck accidents.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reported in 2023 that approximately 16% of U.S. truck drivers were born outside the United States. Immigrants are overrepresented in trucking, according to Census data. Whereas 17% of the American workforce is comprised of immigrants, nearly 19% of truck-drivers are foreign born. If foreign-born drivers were inherently more dangerous, their crash rates would be dramatically higher than their representation in the driving population.

The statistics paint a different picture. In fatal large truck crashes in 2021, 72.7% of the large truck drivers had a valid commercial driver’s license (CDL), 22.5% had no CDL, and 1.6% had a CDL that was expired, suspended, revoked, canceled, or disqualified. This data suggests that licensing status, rather than national origin, is the more relevant factor in crash causation [“The Foreign Driver Scapegoat: How DOT Targets International Truckers Despite Record Safety Improvements,” COGO Insurance, retrieved 2026.01.13].

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration itself admitted to the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals that it has no hard data showing immigrant drivers are more dangerous than us locals. The court cited real data to the contrary when it blocked the Trump effort to restrict non-domiciled CDLs in November:

The FMCSA attempted to justify the good-cause exception based on public safety. See 90 Fed. Reg. at 46,513–14. However, it conceded that “[t]here is not sufficient evidence, derived from well-designed, rigorous, quantitative analyses, to reliably demonstrate a measurable empirical relationship between the nation of domicile for a CDL driver and safety outcomes in the United States.” Id. at 46,520. Furthermore, according to the FMCSA’s own data, non-domiciled CDL holders account for approximately 5 percent of all CDL holders but only about 0.2 percent of fatal crashes. See id. at 46,512, 46,520 (documenting five fatal crashes involving non-domiciled CDL holders in 2025); FMCSA, Summary Report: CY 2025 Fatal Crashes, U.S. Dep’t of Transp. (Sept. 26, 2025), https://perma.cc/KQ2S-YN23 (estimating a total of 2,399 fatal crashes involving large trucks and buses as of September 26, 2025). Given the FMCSA’s anticipation that less-experienced drivers would replace the non-domiciled ones forced out of the market, it does not appear to have shown that the rule would produce any net safety benefit. See 90 Fed. Reg. at 46,520 [U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, Order, Jorge Rivera Lujan et al. v. FMSCA et al., 2025.11.13].

If South Dakota and the Trump Administration were really worried about safety, they’d be recruiting more safe and experienced Canadians, Mexicans, and other foreign friends to drive truck.

But Donald Trump’s war on immigrants is based on hatred, not evidence, and it is making us all less safe.

Related Reading: The same Department of Transportation that wants to increase regulation of immigrant truck drivers for safety’s sake is on a deregulatory spree that could cost far more lives than a ban on non-domiciled CDLs might save:

In total, ProPublica identified 30 regulatory actions taken by the DOT under the new administration that current and former agency officials as well as safety advocates said are at odds with the agency’s mission to protect the public. Some of the regulations targeted by the new administration were required by federal legislation. Five of the targeted regulations could prevent as many as 1,000 deaths and 40,000 injuries each year, according to the agency’s own prior estimates.

…The DOT’s safety enforcement has dropped dramatically as well. In the first eight months of Trump’s second term, the agency opened 50% fewer investigations into vehicle safety defects, concluded 83% fewer enforcement cases against trucking and bus companies and started 58% fewer pipeline enforcement cases compared with the same period in the Biden administration, agency data shows. The agency has also proposed allowing subjects of DOT enforcement actions to bypass career staff and appeal directly to Trump appointees [Jesse Coburn, “How Trump’s Transportation Department Is Loosening Safety Rules Meant to Protect the Public,” ProPublica, 2025.11.20].

Don’t tell me Team Trump is worried about public safety.