An audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has determined that one third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses reviewed were issued illegally.

The agency has given Minnesota 30 days to come into compliance and revoke the illegally issued licenses—or risk losing up to $30.4 million in federal highway funding. The DOT notice asserts, “After months of deadly crashes caused by illegal foreign drivers, the Department is cracking down on states that have failed to follow the law.”

FMCSA audit found the state recklessly issued non-domiciled CDLs to: 

• Drivers whose licenses were valid long after their lawful presence in the U.S. expired. 

• Drivers who were prohibited from holding a non-domiciled commercial CDL.

• Drivers without Minnesota first verifying the individual’s lawful presence in the U.S.

DOT is now demanding that Minnesota take the following corrective measures to avoid funding being withheld: 

• Pause issuance of non-domiciled CDLs. 

• Identify all unexpired non-domiciled CDLs that fail to comply with FMCSA regulations.

• Revoke and reissue all noncompliant non-domiciled CDLs if they comply with the federal requirements.

• Conduct a comprehensive internal audit to identify all procedural and programming errors, training and quality assurance problems, insufficient policies and practices, and other issues that have resulted in the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs that did not meet Federal rules.

FMCSA has previously threatened Pennsylvania with loss of federal funding for similar violations related to non-domiciled CDLs.