Nondomiciled CDLs being issued; press to pass Dalilah’s Law continues

(The Center Square) – Cancelation or downgrading of 1,147 nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses in North Carolina has allowed the state Department of Motor Vehicles to continue the issuance process under stricter federal guidelines.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in a January sample audit, said 54% were issued illegally. That led Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to issue a warning of the federal government withholding $48.7 million to $50 million in highway funding.

The issue remains a high priority for the trucking industry; one beset not only with arguably postured worker supply arguments but increasingly rising costs of diesel fuel leading to staples bought by consumers having higher price tags. In Dallas last week at the inaugural two-day midterm Republican national convention, supporters continued the push for Dalilah’s Law authored in part by North Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. David Rouzer and the crackdown on people illegally in the country operating 80,000-pound tractor-trailer rigs that have been involved in multiple fatal crashes.

Todd Spencer, president of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, in an email to The Center Square said in part, “OOIDA and truckers across America support the Trump administration’s action to restore integrity to the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs. For too long, loopholes in this program have allowed unqualified drivers onto our highways, putting professional truckers and the motoring public at risk. Representative Rouzer’s Dalilah’s Law reflects the Trump administration’s policy and would make it permanent. Passing this bill and getting it signed into law will protect these critical safety reforms from being undone by future court decisions or a new administration. Congress must act immediately to make President Trump’s non-domiciled CDL crackdown the law of the land.”

Also known as Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act and House Resolution 5688, the proposal says nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses are limited to those with lawful immigration status and the employment-based nonimmigrant categories of H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visas. Others can come from U.S. territories or states with decertified CDL programs.

It taps into Ohio Republican Rep. Dave Taylor’s bill known as Connor’s Law.

And the bill remains stalled after being marked up and forwarded in March by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

In the proposal, English language proficiency is required for holders of commercial driver’s licenses, inclusive of road signs and ability to communicate with lawmen.

Other aspects include requirements for states to verify they are not issuing CDLs to people illegally in the country; stronger penalties up to and including withholding of federal funds; and a focus on ending “CDL mills.”

Earlier, Duffy said, “When people can’t understand the English language, can’t read signs, and they don’t know the rules of our roads, that’s a problem. Americans aren’t safe. Also, we see that there are CDL mills, which are driver’s licenses mills where people are not being properly trained. They’re being pushed through, getting licenses, and then driving across the country.

“It’s driving American truckers out of business. And for American trucking companies, driving wages down. That’s not why we’re taking this action. But that’s real consequences of having all these foreigners come in.”

OOIDA bills itself as the largest national organization representing small-business truckers and professional drivers.

The proposal’s namesake is Dalilah Coleman, in June 2024 a 5-year-old passenger in a vehicle struck by a semi-truck driven by a person illegally in America. The vehicle she was in was stopped, the truck driven by Partap Singh was traveling at 60 mph in California. Singh got the CDL in California.

Coleman’s injuries included a fractured skull, broken femur, and traumatic brain injury. She emerged from a three-week coma, and diagnosis of diplegic cerebral palsy and global development delay, to go with her family as a State of the Union guest of second-term Republican President Donald Trump this year.

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For Congress, safety is paramount in the discussion. Collateral damage, however, includes American truckers losing jobs and experiencing wage reductions from less expensive labor invading their home soil.

The oversight of commercial driver’s licensing programs in 2025 resulted in 78 from North Carolina removed from a federal registry.

An eastern North Carolina Baptist church, the Head Start program and a community college are among the entities with involuntary closures of CDL training programs. Of the 3,015 training providers for commercial driver’s licenses removed from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Training Provider Registry, 61 in North Carolina were involuntary and 17 voluntary.

Another 86 were among the nationwide 4,554 put on notice for potential noncompliance.

People in the country illegally and driving big rigs has brought tragedy – and awareness – from coast to coast.

Prosecutors say on Aug. 12, 2025, that Harjinder Singh was driving an 18-wheeler and tried to U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through a point in the divided highway marked “official use only.” The speed limit at mile marker 171 is 70 mph. Three people in a van behind them, with a tractor-trailer suddenly blocking the lane, perished.

In Ontario, Calif., on Oct. 21 of last year, the California Highway Patrol says 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh of India was behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler on the 10 Freeway that didn’t brake starting a rear-end crash involving eight vehicles. Three people died.

In February, a quadruple fatal in Indiana was tied to Bekzhan Beishekeev of Kyrgyzstan failing to brake for a slowed semi-truck and swerving into the westbound traffic on a two-lane highway. His 18-wheeler crashed head-on into a 15-passenger van on State Road 67.

Homeland Security said Beishekeev came to America using the CBP One app offered by the Biden administration. Published reports say he entered through Nogales, Ariz., on Dec. 19, 2023, and was released via parole.

More recently on July 1, Spencer said a tragedy in Pennsylvania might have been averted. A truck driver with a nondomiciled CDL from Massachusetts and his immigration parole status terminated struck and killed Pennsylvania Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. on Interstate 81 while Pahira was inspecting a tractor-trailer on the shoulder of the road.

“Trooper Pahira’s death is a devastating reminder that our current CDL system lacks the safeguards needed to keep unqualified and unvetted drivers off the road,” Spencer wrote to Johnson. “Had this legislation been previously signed into law, the driver responsible for Trooper Pahira’s death would not have been eligible to receive a CDL in the first place.”

Augustin Freight Services LLC, an Alabama commercial motor carrier, and SNK Logistics LLC, a Texas freight broker, are named in the lawsuit filed on behalf of his estate in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania filed Sept. 2.

Jing Dong, driver of a bus involved in a quintuple fatal in Virginia on May 29, is an example of a U.S. citizen – he immigrated from China and naturalized during the Obama administration – who doesn’t speak English. Prosecutors say he was intoxicated and without a license at all.

Rouzer’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure passed the bill 35-26 on March 18.