Colorado Audits 1,745 Immigrant CDL Holders After New Federal Restrictions

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun

The state paused its commercial driver’s license program for immigrants with temporary legal status after a new Trump administration rule

Of the 126,525 people in Colorado licensed to drive 18-wheelers, school buses, and trucks carrying hazardous materials, 1,745 are immigrants who do not have permanent legal status to live in the United States. 

That number won’t rise anytime soon, if ever. 

Colorado paused new licenses and renewals for immigrants without citizenship or green cards after the Trump administration announced “emergency action” in September to drastically restrict who is eligible for commercial driver’s licenses. The new restrictions include refugees, asylum seekers and people protected by DACA, or Deferred Action for Child Arrivals. 

The Colorado Department of Revenue added a bright-yellow notice at the top of its website this fall saying that commercial driver’s licenses for what are called “non-domiciled” residents were on hold “until further notice.” 

After a request from The Colorado Sun, the department released the current number of active commercial driver’s licenses for foreign nationals with temporary lawful status, but said it could not provide a timeframe for when those licenses were given or how many were received in the past few months. 

The federal policy change, which followed a deadly truck crash in Florida involving a driver from India who made an illegal U-turn, has advocates nationwide concerned about the financial impact on immigrants who sought careers as truck drivers. 

Among them is a Colorado immigrant from Afghanistan who was picked up during an ICE sting at a weigh station in Indiana. Mohammad Ali Dadfar, an asylum seeker who had worked alongside the U.S. government fighting the Taliban before fleeing the country, had been a long-haul truck driver for only a few weeks when he was taken into custody in October. 

He is being held in a Missouri detention center, while his wife tries to support their four children in Boulder County. Dadfar has a valid commercial driver’s license and a work permit.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE COLORADO SUN