U.S. wrongly withheld New York highway funds over immigrant licenses, appeals court rules
Summary
A federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Transportation Department wrongly withheld nearly $74 million in highway funds from New York over the state’s handling of immigrant commercial driver’s licenses. The court said New York could not be penalized for failing to revoke licenses under rules that were not in place at the time.Key Facts
- A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the federal agency’s penalty arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law.
- The penalty involved nearly $74 million in highway funds.
- New York had declined to revoke nearly 33,000 commercial driver’s licenses that federal officials questioned after an audit.
- The court said rules requiring cancellation when a driver lost legal status were not in place at the time.
- New York issued some commercial licenses valid for eight years, regardless of how long the driver’s visa remained valid.
- Federal audits found non-domiciled commercial licenses that remained valid after work permits expired or were issued without proper citizenship-status checks.
- The Transportation Department said it had canceled 30,000 commercial licenses it considered illegally issued and removed about 26,000 drivers from the road for failing to demonstrate English proficiency.
Read the Full Article
This is a fact-based summary from The Actual News. Click below to read the complete story directly from the original source.
