Briefs in as sides gets read to rumble over non-domiciled CDLs

With the relevant federal agencies filing their brief with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals last week, the stage is set for oral arguments in the case of Lujan vs. the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that will rule on the agency’s recent restrictions on the granting of non-domiciled CDLs.

Oral arguments will be heard September 15 in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In the interim, the FMCSA rule on non-domiciled CDLs is in place, with the plaintiffs in the case having been rejected in their request for a stay that would have blocked the regulation. window. googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd.

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display('div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0'); }); At issue is the February rule that limited the ability of states to issue a CDL to persons who were “not domiciled in the United States, who are almost entirely aliens,” the government respondents, including FMCSA and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, said in its brief filed last week.

Screening an applicant’s driving history is of “limited utility for applicants who are aliens not domiciled in the United States, because the databases do not contain foreign driving records and States otherwise lack the ability to obtain those foreign driving records,” the government’s brief said.

But the rule handed down in February, the government brief said, “closes this gap by precluding aliens whose driving history cannot be adequately vetted from obtaining a CDL.” Part two of the February rule tightened the method a CDL applicant could demonstrate “lawful immigration status” by presenting an active passport or various federal forms.

It’s in our wheelhouse The core of the argument presented by FMCSA is that the changes the agency made are “well within FMCSA’s statutory authority to prescribe minimum uniform standards for CDL issuance.” “Furthermore, FMCSA exercised its authority reasonably,” the agency said.

“It documented the safety and administrability concerns that motivated it to act, it addressed those concerns in a rationally tailored manner, and it gave due consideration to important aspects of the problem.” window. googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag.

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push(function() {googletag. display('div-gpt-ad-1665767553440-0'); }); The lead petitioner in the case, fighting the FMCSA move, is Martin Luther King County in Washington. The lead named individual is one-time truck driver Jorge Lujan. Several unions under the AFL-CIO also are listed as petitioners to the appellate court.

The list of petitioners’ amici seeking to reverse the FMCSA decision–friends of the court–is a long one. It includes a list of cities from Albany to Seattle to El Paso and plenty in between. The Teamsters are in there; so is the Sikh Coalition.

Beyond its authority “Congress provided FMCSA with narrowly prescribed rulemaking authority to establish safety and licensing standards for issuing commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs),” the petitioners said in their filing, submitted to the court last month.

But the non-domiciled rule, the petitioners say in their filing, “does not set a safety standard of specific information that a driver must submit before obtaining a CDL. Rather, the rule restricts noncitizens’ eligibility for CDLs to those with specific visas.” window. googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag.

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display('div-gpt-ad-1709668086344-0'); }); In the process, according to the petitioners, the FMCSA rule “broadly prohibits all other lawfully present noncitizens—asylum seekers, asylees, refugees, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients—from obtaining CDLs even though they are eligible to remain and work in the United States.”

The rule will “render ineligible 97% of noncitizens who currently hold a CDL,” the petitioners’ brief said. The petitioners charge FMCSA with sa