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Duffy Holds a Press Conference on New York's Non-Domiciled CDL Practices, Dec. 12, 2025

December 12, 2025 · US Department of Transportation · 0:31:16

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy held a press conference on New York’s non-domiciled commercial driver’s license practices, in the Department of Transportation’s December 12, 2025 upload. Duffy said a nationwide audit had found New York the worst offender: 53 percent of the state’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued unlawfully, as he stated the figure. New York, he said, automatically issues an eight-year commercial license to an applicant whose work authorization may run only 30 days, 60 days, or a year — contrary to the law, as he stated it — and in many cases does not verify whether the applicant has a visa or is in the country legally at all.

He gave New York 30 days to come into compliance, as he said the law requires, and warned that if the state refuses, the department would pull tens of millions of dollars as a first phase, and would use every tool at its disposal against any state that does not comply. He placed New York alongside California, where he said about 25 percent of non-domiciled CDLs were issued unlawfully and 17,000 had been revoked after federal pressure, and he raised the department’s wider concerns about English proficiency enforcement and so-called CDL mills that certify drivers without training, as he stated them. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s administrator then detailed the audit findings, as he presented them.

Why it matters

This press conference is the enforcement deadline inside Duffy’s trucking-safety campaign: the February 2026 “Securing America’s Roads” press conference paged on this site states the campaign’s full case, and this December event is where its central state fight — New York’s licensing practices, with federal highway money as the lever — was formally opened with a dated compliance clock.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the 30-day compliance deadline given to New York on December 12, 2025, over non-domiciled CDLs stated to be 53 percent unlawfully issued, with tens of millions in federal funds at stake as a first phase. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation, “U.S. Secretary Sean P. Duffy to Hold Press Conference on New York’s Non-Domiciled CDL Practices” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks and figures as delivered by Secretary Duffy and the FMCSA Administrator at the press conference.