California must let immigrant truck drivers keep their licenses, judge rules

More than 20,000 immigrant truck drivers will be able to keep their licenses in California, at least temporarily, despite efforts by the Trump administration and the state of California to revoke them, according to a tentative ruling in Alameda County Superior Court.

The decision puts the state of California in a bind. The U.S. Department of Transportation already has repeatedly pushed the California Department of Motor Vehicles to rescind these licenses, which belong to many asylum seekers and other immigrants with temporary legal status, after the federal government found alleged clerical issues regarding the expiration dates on their licenses. The California DMV complied with the transportation department’s demands and sent letters to more than 20,000 drivers last fall, telling them that their California licenses would expire in the next 60 days.