Washington state issued almost 700 commercial driver’s licenses over the past seven years to non-US citizens—by accident

The revelation comes as the Evergreen State sits in the crosshairs of the Trump administration's CDL crackdown following the case of Harjinder Singh, an illegal alien who allegedly made an illegal U-turn in a semi-truck and killed three people in Florida in August. Singh, who crossed the border illegally in 2018, failed the required tests and allegedly did not speak English.

Washington still issued him a commercial driver’s license, which he then used to obtain a California CDL. After the fatal crash, Florida’s attorney general asked the US Supreme Court to permanently bar Washington and California from issuing commercial licenses to noncitizens. Washington has until Jan. 27 to respond.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has since threatened to withhold federal highway funding from states that issue CDLs to immigrants who don’t qualify and has moved to tighten eligibility rules, moves now being litigated. According to the Washington State Standard, the state Department of Licensing (DOL) found 685 CDLs had been wrongly issued over seven years.

A US Department of Transportation spokesperson told the outlet that Washington’s “failure to follow federal law is a blatant breakdown in its responsibility to protect the public,” adding that by handing out CDLs to ineligible drivers, the state “sent unsafe foreign drivers onto highways across America and put countless families in danger. This is exactly the kind of negligence Secretary Duffy is working to eliminate. Following the law is not optional.”

DOL spokesperson Nathan Olson said, “Errors have been addressed, and DOL is working to make changes in our system, process, procedures, and training to prevent mis-issuances in the future.”

The admissions came the same week a Mexican national was arrested after Washington State Patrol said he caused a six-vehicle pileup on I-5 in Lacey when the car-hauling semi he was driving, without a CDL, slammed into the back of a school bus. Troopers said Juan Hernandez-Santos had no commercial license, no insurance, and no valid medical card. He was charged with operating a commercial vehicle without a valid license, a gross misdemeanor. The at-fault carrier is based in California.

Earlier this year, Duffy ordered audits of states issuing CDLs to illegal immigrants and backed an executive order from President Donald Trump aimed at keeping non-English-speaking truck drivers off the roads. He has also pushed rules limiting which visa holders can qualify for CDLs and has threatened tens of millions in funding cuts to Minnesota and Pennsylvania over similar licensing problems.

The Washington revelations also echo the Skyline CDL scandal, where a school and testing pipeline allegedly used bribery and improper practices to push unqualified drivers into commercial licenses.