POLITICS: Gavin Newsom’s pathetic reasons for pulling SOME illegal truckers’ licenses

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s critics took a victory lap this week when California revoked 17,000 Commercial Drivers Licenses it had issued to migrant truck drivers whose legal permission to be in the United States ended before the CDLs’ expiration dates.

Yet the Golden State may still be defying federal law: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the 17,000 the “tip of the iceberg,” warning that Team Trump will keep investigating Cali for issuing CDLs to illegal migrants or to drivers who flunked English proficiency exams. 

Case in point: Video seems to show Harjinder Singh ignoring signs barring a U-turn on the Florida Turnpike before the deadly crash that killed three in August.

Investigators said that he had received CDLs in Washington state and California, despite failing the tests several times. 

He also failed an English proficiency test after the crash. (He entered the country illegally in 2018; California claims he later obtained legal status.)

Certainly, the state is still openly defying President Donald Trump’s August executive order requiring English proficiency for CDLs: Newsom ordered the California Highway Patrol to ignore it. 

That led Duffy to pull $40 million in federal highway funding; he threatens to withhold $160 million more for not enforcing other new rules.

In the Biden years, Cali handed out CDLs easily, casting its lax standards as a way of securing US supply chains in the wake of the pandemic.

Newsom’s office boasted in 2021 of “issuing 60 percent more CDLs this year compared to last” thanks to Biden administration cooperation in cutting “bureaucratic red tape.”

Sometimes — especially in California — red tape makes life impossible. But some rules exist to save lives. 

As governor, Newsom has the power to choose which rules to enforce and which to ignore. He wants to crack down on gas-powered trucks — but not on drivers who can’t read road signs and shouldn’t even be in the country.

He had to be dragged into enforcing the law.

Newsom’s belated decision to cut 17,000 CDLs is an admission of bad policy, perhaps with an eye on avoiding queries on the presidential campaign trail about why he let illegal aliens who can’t speak English turn 18-wheelers loose on the roads. 

That, and Duffy’s threat to withhold funds, are the only reasons Gavin is finally doing the right thing.