On September 29, 2025, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued an interim final rule with immediate effect, stripping commercial driver’s license eligibility from an estimated 194,000 to 200,000 work-authorized immigrants operating trucks, school buses, and delivery vehicles across the United States. The rule eliminated CDL access for DACA recipients, asylum seekers, refugees, and anyone holding an Employment Authorization Document that was not tied to one of three specific visa categories.
The legal challenge that followed, Rivera Lujan v. FMCSA, No. 25-1215, was filed October 20, 2025, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by Public Citizen Litigation Group on behalf of DACA recipient and owner-operator Jorge Rivera Lujan, asylum seeker Aleksei Semenovskii, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). A parallel petition was filed by King County, Washington, which employs non-domiciled CDL holders on its public transit fleet. The D.C. Circuit initially stayed the rule in November 2025, FMCSA issued a revised final rule in February 2026, and the court denied a second stay request on May 5, 2026. Oral arguments are scheduled for September 2026.
- What: A federal lawsuit challenging the FMCSA’s rule that limits non-domiciled CDL eligibility to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa holders — eliminating commercial driving privileges for roughly 200,000 work-authorized immigrants.
- Who: DACA recipient Jorge Rivera Lujan, asylum seeker Aleksei Semenovskii, AFSCME, and AFT versus FMCSA and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Separate suits filed by King County, Washington, and the State of New York.
- Status: Ongoing. D.C. Circuit denied a second stay on May 5, 2026. The final rule is in effect. Plaintiffs filed an opening brief; oral arguments are scheduled for September 2026.
- Injuries: Loss of CDL and livelihood for approximately 200,000 drivers; federal funding penalties of $158 million against California and $73.5 million against New York.
- Settlement: None — plaintiffs seek to void the rule entirely as unlawful.
- Eligibility: Non-domiciled CDL holders whose licenses were revoked or denied under the rule may have standing to join or support the ongoing challenge.
- Key date: Oral arguments scheduled for September 2026. Plaintiffs’ brief due June 15, 2026; FMCSA response due July 15, 2026.
Non-Domiciled CDL Lawsuit Timeline and Updates
Background — What a Non-Domiciled CDL Is and Who Holds One
A commercial driver’s license (CDL) authorizes the holder to operate commercial motor vehicles, including tractor-trailers, school buses, dump trucks, and delivery vehicles. A “domiciled” CDL is issued to someone whose state of domicile — where they truly live — is in the issuing state. A “non-domiciled” CDL, governed by 49 CFR § 383.73(f), is issued to someone who is domiciled in a foreign country but is legally present and working in the United States.
Non-domiciled CDLs have existed since the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 established national CDL standards. For decades, states issued them to any individual who presented valid documentation of lawful presence and work authorization in the United States. Employment Authorization Documents (EADs), which are issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to a broad range of work-eligible immigrants including DACA recipients, asylum seekers, and refugees, were widely accepted by state driver licensing agencies as sufficient eligibility documentation.
July 2025 — FMCSA Audits Expose State CDL Issuance Practices
In mid-2025, FMCSA conducted audits of multiple state driver licensing agencies and found widespread inconsistencies in how states processed non-domiciled CDL applications from EAD holders. The agency’s audit of New York found that 107 of 200 sampled records — a failure rate exceeding 53% — were issued in violation of what FMCSA now characterized as federal requirements. A parallel audit of California found similar deficiencies.
New York’s DMV had reportedly issued eight-year CDLs to applicants whose work authorization was temporary — sometimes as short as 30 or 60 days. FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs called the practice a “systematically, grossly unacceptable deviation from the rules that have been on the books a long time.” New York disputed this characterization, arguing it had operated consistent with FMCSA’s own longstanding interpretation of the rules and had never previously been cited for noncompliance during annual federal reviews.
September 29, 2025 — FMCSA Issues Emergency Interim Final Rule
On September 29, 2025, FMCSA published an interim final rule in the Federal Register titled “Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Driver’s Licenses.” The rule took immediate effect without a notice-and-comment period. FMCSA claimed “good cause” to bypass public notice, arguing that advance warning would trigger a surge of last-minute applications from drivers who would soon become ineligible.
The rule dramatically narrowed who could hold a non-domiciled CDL or commercial learner’s permit (CLP). Under the new framework, eligibility was restricted to holders of three specific employment-based nonimmigrant visa categories: H-2A (temporary agricultural workers), H-2B (temporary non-agricultural workers), and E-2 (treaty investors). Every other immigration status — including DACA, asylum, refugee, temporary protected status, and any form of EAD not tied to those three visa types — was no longer sufficient. The agency simultaneously flagged California as substantially noncompliant with CDL issuance requirements.
On the same day, the FMCSA opened a public comment period through November 28, 2025, signaling that it intended to proceed to a final rule regardless of litigation.
October 20, 2025 — Rivera Lujan Lawsuit Filed in D.C. Circuit
Public Citizen Litigation Group filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on October 20, 2025, challenging both the substance of the rule and FMCSA’s failure to follow the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirements. The lead plaintiff, Jorge Rivera Lujan, is a DACA recipient who came to the United States at age two, has lived here his entire life, and has worked as a commercial truck driver and owner-operator for 11 years. His CDL, the complaint argued, was not an immigration document — it was the product of years of safe driving with a verifiable U.S. record.
The petition was joined by Aleksei Semenovskii, an asylum seeker also facing CDL revocation, along with AFSCME and AFT — two major unions that employ non-domiciled CDL holders to operate public transit buses, school buses, and other government vehicles. A separate petition in the same court, No. 25-1224, was filed by King County, Washington, home of Seattle, which relies on non-domiciled CDL holders in its Metro Transit fleet.
October 24, 2025 — Emergency Motion to Stay the Rule
Four days after filing the petition, Public Citizen filed an emergency motion asking the court to pause the rule while litigation proceeded. The motion argued that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits — that FMCSA had acted without statutory authority and without following required rulemaking procedures — and that the irreparable harm from immediate CDL revocations could not be undone later by a favorable court ruling.
By this point, more than 4,800 public comments had already been submitted to the FMCSA docket, many from commercial drivers facing imminent loss of their livelihoods.
November 13, 2025 — D.C. Circuit Stays the Interim Final Rule
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered an administrative stay of the interim final rule on November 10, 2025, and converted it to a stay pending further review on November 13, 2025. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. The majority found that the petitioners were “likely to succeed” on the merits — specifically flagging three problems with the rule.
First, FMCSA had not consulted states as required before issuing rules affecting state driver licensing agencies. Second, the agency had relied on anecdotal crash data rather than a systematic showing that non-domiciled CDL drivers posed a greater safety risk. Third, FMCSA had not established that the rule would actually improve road safety — a foundational requirement for an agency operating under a safety mandate.
With the stay in place, state driver licensing agencies could resume issuing and renewing non-domiciled CDLs while litigation continued.
December 2025 — DOT Threatens New York, California Over Funding
Despite the court stay, the Trump administration continued pressing states that had been cited in the earlier audits. In December 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy publicly threatened to pull $73 million in highway funding from New York, citing the audit findings. FMCSA separately warned California that the state faced a $158 million funding penalty for failing to revoke non-domiciled CDLs the federal government considered improperly issued. California appealed that determination to the D.C. Circuit.
The comment period for the interim final rule closed November 28, 2025. FMCSA received over 8,000 comments from states, unions, advocacy groups including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Sikh Coalition, trucking carriers, and individual drivers. The Sikh Coalition’s involvement reflected concern about turban-wearing Sikh drivers whose foreign-origin religious practice documentation formed part of their non-domiciled CDL applications being caught in the rule’s broad sweep.
February 13, 2026 — FMCSA Issues Revised Final Rule
On February 13, 2026, FMCSA published its final rule, Docket No. FMCSA-2025-0622, RIN 2126-AC98, in the Federal Register. The agency described the final rule as reaffirming the interim final rule “with minor changes.” The core eligibility restriction remained unchanged: only H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa holders could obtain or renew a non-domiciled CDL. The final rule took effect March 16, 2026.
In issuing the final rule, FMCSA said it had now completed state consultations and processed over 8,000 public comments. The agency conducted a nationwide audit that identified discrepancies in how states had interpreted Employment Authorization forms — particularly the immigration codes listed on those forms — and cited 28 states and jurisdictions for issuing non-domiciled CDLs that did not comply with federal regulations as the agency now interpreted them.
February 26, 2026 — Plaintiffs File New Emergency Stay Motion
Public Citizen filed a new petition challenging the final rule on February 26, 2026, in the same court. Plaintiffs sought an emergency stay of the March 16 effective date, arguing the final rule was substantively the same as the interim rule the court had already found procedurally and substantively deficient. FMCSA denied the plaintiffs’ administrative stay request on February 19, prompting the emergency court filing.
In March 2026, a California state court separately ordered the California DMV to allow approximately 20,000 non-domiciled commercial drivers whose CDLs had been cancelled to reapply — finding that the DMV could not summarily revoke their licenses without due process, even when acting in response to federal guidance.
April 16, 2026 — DOT Withholds $73.5 Million from New York
On April 16, 2026, FMCSA issued a final determination of substantial noncompliance against New York and announced it would withhold $73,502,543 in federal-aid highway funds — approximately 4% of New York’s allocation under the National Highway Performance Program and the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program. New York had disputed the findings at every stage, arguing it had followed federal rules as they were consistently interpreted and applied during multiple prior annual reviews without any finding of noncompliance.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed suit in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the withholding. Governor Kathy Hochul described the funding cutoff as “political payback,” saying New York had always followed federal rules when issuing CDLs, a practice the previous Trump administration had verified year after year. The Second Circuit lawsuit argued that FMCSA’s determination was “predicated on an erroneous reading of its own long-standing regulations” and that the agency could not retroactively penalize states for past CDL issuances that complied with federal standards as they existed and were enforced at the time.
May 5, 2026 — D.C. Circuit Denies Second Stay; Case Proceeds to Merits
In a 2-1 decision issued May 5, 2026, the D.C. Circuit denied the plaintiffs’ request to stay the final rule pending appeal. This represented a complete reversal from the November 2025 decision to pause the interim rule. The majority ruled in FMCSA’s favor, finding that the agency had cured the procedural defects that had undermined the earlier version of the rule: it had now consulted states, processed public comments, and offered a more developed rationale.
On the substantive safety question, the court agreed that FMCSA had a wide statutory berth to define CDL eligibility and that the H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa categories — which involve enhanced consular vetting of foreign nationals’ backgrounds — could reasonably be treated as a proxy for the driver-history verification that U.S. states cannot independently perform for foreign-domiciled applicants. As to Rivera Lujan specifically, the court acknowledged his DACA status and years of U.S. driving records but found it reasonable for FMCSA to treat EAD holders categorically rather than case-by-case, given the documented inconsistencies in how states had processed EAD applications.
Critically, the court did not rule on the merits — the denial of the stay was not a final judgment on whether the rule is lawful. The case proceeds to full briefing and oral argument. Plaintiffs’ opening brief is due June 15, 2026. FMCSA’s response is due July 15, 2026. Oral arguments are scheduled for September 2026. The Teamsters and the Sikh Coalition were permitted to file amicus curiae briefs in support of the plaintiffs.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
The plaintiffs advance three primary legal arguments, each targeting a different dimension of how FMCSA issued and justified the rule.
First: the rule is substantively beyond FMCSA’s statutory authority. The Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act and the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act authorize FMCSA to set CDL standards to ensure driver fitness and road safety. Plaintiffs argue nothing in those statutes gives the agency authority to condition CDL eligibility on the specific immigration visa category a driver holds, particularly when a driver like Rivera Lujan has a documented U.S. driving history that could be — and was — reviewed upon application. The rule, they contend, is an immigration enforcement measure disguised as a safety regulation.
Second: the rule is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. FMCSA cited five fatal crashes in its emergency rulemaking and presented no statistical evidence that non-domiciled CDL holders as a class drive less safely than domestic drivers. The plaintiffs argue, and the D.C. Circuit agreed in November 2025, that the agency “first decided on the outcome of the rulemaking and only then looked for reasons to support it.” The final rule corrected some of these deficiencies but the plaintiffs contend it still lacks a genuine empirical basis for the safety claim.
Third: the interim final rule bypassed required notice-and-comment procedures. FMCSA claimed “good cause” to skip public notice — arguing that advance warning would trigger a surge of applications. Plaintiffs call this pretextual: the agency knew months before issuing the rule that it intended to restrict non-domiciled CDLs, and prior administrations had reviewed and declined the same approach precisely because they questioned its legal and practical basis.
Who Is Affected — The Scope of the Rule
The FMCSA estimated that approximately 194,000 to 200,000 currently working commercial drivers held non-domiciled CDLs that became invalid under the rule. These drivers include truck drivers operating tractor-trailers, school bus drivers, transit bus operators on public systems, delivery drivers, and workers operating other commercial vehicles for carriers and government agencies.
| Immigration Status | Eligible Before Rule? | Eligible After Rule? |
|---|---|---|
| H-2A (temp. agricultural workers) | Yes | Yes |
| H-2B (temp. non-agricultural workers) | Yes | Yes |
| E-2 (treaty investors) | Yes | Yes |
| DACA recipients (EAD) | Yes (in most states) | No |
| Asylum seekers (EAD) | Yes (in most states) | No |
| Refugees (EAD) | Yes (in most states) | No |
| Temporary Protected Status (TPS) | Yes (in most states) | No |
| Other EAD categories | Yes (in most states) | No |
The rule’s breadth extends well beyond undocumented workers — a framing common in political discussions. Every individual affected by the rule held legally issued work authorization from the U.S. government. DACA recipients like Rivera Lujan grew up in the United States, attended American schools, and built careers and businesses here. Asylum seekers are individuals seeking legal protection under U.S. and international law. Refugees are individuals formally admitted to the United States by the federal government itself. All of them had CDLs issued by states that followed then-existing federal regulations, and all of them face career destruction through no fault of their own.
The State Funding Battle — California and New York
Alongside the driver-focused litigation, a parallel conflict has erupted between the federal government and the two states with the largest non-domiciled CDL populations. California, with an estimated 20,000 non-domiciled CDL holders, faces a $158 million federal highway funding penalty. New York, with approximately 25,000 non-domiciled CDL holders and a total of 32,606 unexpired non-domiciled credentials issued, faces a $73.5 million penalty.
Both states dispute the factual and legal basis for the penalties. New York has argued that FMCSA conducted annual reviews of its CDL program for years without ever finding it noncompliant with federal regulations, and that the agency cannot retroactively apply standards adopted in September 2025 to licenses issued years earlier under the then-existing interpretation of federal law. The Second Circuit lawsuit New York filed in April 2026 advances this argument, along with the broader claim that FMCSA misread its own long-standing regulations in declaring the states non-compliant.
The California situation has additional complexity. A California state court ruled in March 2026 that the state DMV could not summarily revoke non-domiciled CDLs without due process — meaning individual drivers were entitled to notice and a hearing before their licenses were taken away. That ruling created a procedural protection that slowed revocations even as the federal funding threat applied pressure to accelerate them.
What FMCSA Says in Its Defense
FMCSA has offered two interlocking justifications for the rule. The first is a safety argument: states cannot verify the foreign driving histories of non-domiciled CDL applicants. An applicant from a foreign country may have had accidents, license suspensions, or DUIs abroad that would disqualify them under U.S. standards — but U.S. state licensing agencies have no access to those records. By limiting non-domiciled CDLs to visa categories that require enhanced consular vetting — H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 — FMCSA argues it creates a proxy for the background vetting that domestic CDL applicants receive through the driving record system.
The second is an integrity argument: the audit findings showed that states had issued long-duration CDLs to individuals whose legal status was temporary or uncertain, creating a gap where someone with a 30-day work authorization could hold an eight-year commercial license. FMCSA argues this is not about immigration enforcement but about ensuring that CDL holders maintain legally authorized presence in the United States throughout the life of their license.
Plaintiffs counter both arguments. On safety: drivers like Rivera Lujan, who have spent their entire adult lives in the United States and have decades of domestic driving records, present none of the unverifiable-foreign-history problem the agency describes. On integrity: an Employment Authorization Document is a federal government credential, issued by USCIS, certifying legal work authorization. Treating it as insufficient documentation while accepting H-2B visa status — a category historically subject to employer abuse and legal disputes — is an arbitrary line to draw.
Why the Non-Domiciled CDL Fight Is Bigger Than Trucking
The rule’s impact extends far beyond the freight industry. Non-domiciled CDL holders drive school buses in multiple states. King County Metro Transit in Washington operates public buses with non-domiciled CDL holders. Trash collection, construction equipment, fire apparatus, and farm transport all rely on commercial licenses that could fall under the new framework depending on how states implement the revocation requirements.
The Teamsters union filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs, a notable alignment given that the Teamsters represent domestic truck drivers who might benefit from reduced competition for driving jobs. The union’s involvement signals that the case implicates broader principles about federal administrative overreach and worker rights that transcend any one immigration status.
The Sikh Coalition’s participation reflects a specific concern: some Sikh truck drivers hold non-domiciled CDLs because their turbans, worn for religious reasons, can make it impossible to obtain the REAL ID-compliant credentials required for standard domiciled CDLs in some states. The rule’s sweep could inadvertently strip CDLs from American-born Sikh drivers caught in licensing classification issues unrelated to their immigration status. This situational parallel to rules that appeared neutral on their face but produced discriminatory outcomes drew comparison to legal cases like the food stamps sugary drinks lawsuit, where the practical effects of a policy fell disproportionately on vulnerable populations who had no meaningful way to advocate for themselves during the rulemaking process.
What Affected Drivers Can Do Now
With the final rule in effect since March 16, 2026, and the second stay denied, affected drivers face a constrained set of options pending the September oral arguments.
- Contact an immigration attorney to determine whether a visa category change to H-2A, H-2B, or E-2 is possible given your employment situation.
- Document all CDL-related records: original issuance date, driving history, any U.S. traffic or safety record that supports your eligibility argument.
- Check your state’s compliance status and whether a state-level due process challenge — similar to the California court’s March 2026 ruling — has been filed that could protect you from summary revocation.
- Monitor the D.C. Circuit docket in Rivera Lujan v. FMCSA. A merits ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor could void the rule retroactively and restore CDL eligibility broadly.
- Connect with AFSCME, AFT, the Teamsters, or Public Citizen if you have information about safety records, employment history, or compliance practices that could support the litigation.
Carriers and employers who depend on non-domiciled CDL holders should also consult counsel. Employers operating across multiple states face different enforcement timelines and compliance obligations depending on whether their state has been cited for noncompliance and whether a state-level legal challenge has altered the revocation timeline in that jurisdiction.
What This Lawsuit Teaches Consumers
The non-domiciled CDL fight exposes a pattern that recurs across federal regulation: an agency identifies a policy goal — in this case, enforcing immigration status verification through a commercial licensing mechanism — and reaches for the legal authority most likely to achieve that goal quickly, bypassing the procedures that exist to slow things down. Notice and comment, state consultation, empirical evidence of harm: these are not bureaucratic inconveniences. They are the mechanisms by which 200,000 affected drivers, the states that license them, the carriers that employ them, and the public that shares roads with them all get to say what a proposed rule would actually do in the real world before it becomes law.
When FMCSA bypassed those procedures in September 2025, the D.C. Circuit found it likely had done so unlawfully. When FMCSA revised the rule in February 2026 and went through a compressed version of the required process, the court let the rule stand pending full review. The September 2026 oral arguments will determine whether the compressed process was legally sufficient — or whether the rule still lacks the evidentiary foundation that a safety mandate requires.
For the 200,000 drivers whose careers hang in the balance, the outcome of that argument is not abstract. It is the difference between a livelihood and its loss. Jorge Rivera Lujan came to this country at age two. He has driven commercially for 11 years. His safety record is visible and verifiable. The rule treats him identically to someone whose driving history is entirely unknown. That is the question the court will ultimately answer: whether a safety regulation that ignores available safety evidence is really about safety at all.
The broader pattern of federal agencies bypassing required rulemaking procedures — and the legal consequences that follow — has played out in other major cases too, including the SNAP food restriction lawsuit, where plaintiffs argued that the USDA approved sweeping benefit changes without the public notice the Administrative Procedure Act requires.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the DOT non-domiciled CDL lawsuit?
The lawsuit, Rivera Lujan v. FMCSA, challenges a February 2026 federal rule that restricts non-domiciled CDL eligibility to only H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa holders, eliminating commercial driving licenses for approximately 200,000 work-authorized immigrants including DACA recipients, asylum seekers, and refugees. It is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, with oral arguments scheduled for September 2026.
What is a non-domiciled CDL?
A non-domiciled commercial driver’s license is issued to someone who is legally present and working in the United States but is domiciled in a foreign country. The framework has existed since the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986. Before the FMCSA’s 2025 rule, states issued non-domiciled CDLs to any person with valid U.S. work authorization, including Employment Authorization Document holders.
Who is Jorge Rivera Lujan?
Jorge Rivera Lujan is a DACA recipient who came to the United States at age two and has worked as a commercial truck driver and owner-operator for 11 years. He is the lead plaintiff in the federal lawsuit challenging FMCSA’s non-domiciled CDL rule. Public Citizen Litigation Group represents him along with AFSCME and AFT.
Which immigration statuses can no longer get a non-domiciled CDL under the rule?
The final rule, effective March 16, 2026, eliminates CDL eligibility for DACA recipients, asylum seekers, asylees, refugees, temporary protected status holders, and anyone whose work authorization comes from an Employment Authorization Document not tied to an H-2A, H-2B, or E-2 visa. Only those three specific visa categories remain eligible.
What did the D.C. Circuit court decide?
The court issued two rulings. In November 2025, it stayed the original interim final rule, finding plaintiffs were likely to succeed and that FMCSA had failed to consult states, relied on anecdotal crash data, and had not shown the rule would improve safety. In May 2026, it denied a second stay of the revised final rule in a 2-1 decision, finding FMCSA had cured enough procedural defects in its final rulemaking. A full merits ruling on the rule’s legality will follow September 2026 oral arguments.
How many drivers are affected by the non-domiciled CDL rule?
FMCSA estimated approximately 194,000 to 200,000 currently working commercial drivers held non-domiciled CDLs that became invalid under the rule. New York had issued approximately 32,606 unexpired non-domiciled credentials; California had approximately 20,000 affected drivers.
What is the dispute between FMCSA and New York and California?
FMCSA audits found that both states had issued non-domiciled CDLs in ways the agency now considers noncompliant with federal regulations. California faces $158 million in withheld federal highway funding; New York faces $73.5 million. Both states dispute the findings, arguing they followed federal rules as consistently interpreted prior to the September 2025 rulemaking and had never been cited for noncompliance in prior annual federal reviews. New York sued in the Second Circuit; California sued in the D.C. Circuit.
What are the legal arguments against the non-domiciled CDL rule?
Plaintiffs raise three claims under the Administrative Procedure Act: (1) FMCSA exceeded its statutory authority by tying CDL eligibility to immigration visa categories rather than driver safety records; (2) the rule is arbitrary and capricious because it relies on anecdotal crash data with no statistical showing that non-domiciled CDL holders are less safe; and (3) the interim final rule bypassed required notice-and-comment procedures using a ‘good cause’ justification plaintiffs call pretextual.
What is FMCSA’s safety justification for the rule?
FMCSA argues states cannot verify the foreign driving histories of non-domiciled CDL applicants, creating a safety gap. By limiting eligibility to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa categories, which require enhanced consular vetting, the agency says it creates a proxy for driver background verification. FMCSA also cited a nationwide audit showing widespread state errors in processing EAD-based CDL applications, including issuing eight-year licenses to applicants whose work authorization was temporary.
What happens if the D.C. Circuit rules in the plaintiffs’ favor?
A merits ruling invalidating the rule would void the non-domiciled CDL restrictions and could restore eligibility for the roughly 200,000 affected drivers. It could also undo the funding penalties against California and New York if those penalties were predicated on the same rule. The court would likely remand the matter to FMCSA, which could attempt a new rulemaking with proper notice and comment and a stronger empirical foundation.
What can affected non-domiciled CDL holders do now?
Affected drivers should consult an immigration attorney about visa category options, preserve all CDL and driving history records, and monitor the D.C. Circuit proceedings. Drivers in states with pending state-level due process challenges may have additional procedural protections against summary revocation. The case heads to oral argument in September 2026, and a ruling favorable to plaintiffs could restore CDL eligibility broadly.
Why are AFSCME and the American Federation of Teachers suing over a trucking rule?
Both unions represent workers who hold non-domiciled CDLs, including school bus drivers, public transit operators, municipal vehicle drivers, and other government employees. King County, Washington, home of Seattle, filed a parallel lawsuit as a government employer relying on non-domiciled CDL holders in its Metro Transit fleet. The unions joined the litigation because their members’ livelihoods are directly threatened by the rule.
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