Trump License Crackdown Sidelines 200,000 Immigrant Drivers, New York Risks Losing $73 Million

New federal restrictions on commercial driver licenses for immigrants threaten to upend New York’s transport workforce, with consequences rippling across schools, commerce, and the city’s infrastructure.

Last autumn, some of New York’s busiest arteries began to feel a subtle tremor. A sudden bureaucratic shift, powered by a federal policy, threatened to sideline as many as 200,000 commercial drivers, most of them immigrants. Now, in the frosted mornings of 2026, school buses arrive late, boardrooms fret over freight delays, and truck-stop diners trade rumors of who has already lost a paycheck.

On February 19th, New York State’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) confirmed it had indefinitely paused its “non-domiciled” commercial driver license (CDL) program. The move came directly in response to a Trump administration edict—engineered by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy—which threatened to withhold $73 million in highway funding unless the state ceased issuing CDLs to noncitizen applicants. New York’s acquiescence, though described as a “pause,” has already left thousands like Rosario Argueta—a Salvadoran visa holder and school bus driver of 16 years—jobless.

At the heart of the controversy lies Duffy’s assertion that “foreign drivers” pose increased safety risks, a claim loosely grounded in a handful of high-profile crashes but not robust statistical evidence. Nonetheless, faced with the prospect of a gaping budget shortfall, New York officials pressed pause. As the city’s lawsuit inches through federal court, the effect on the ground is sudden and personal. Argueta’s demotion from driver to assistant monitor at Suffolk Transportation Services slashed her wages by nearly half, forcing her to ask her college-age children to seek extra work.

To dismiss this as a parochial bureaucratic spat would misjudge both its scale and its gravity. Commercial drivers—behind the yellow school buses, delivery lorries, and transit shuttles—are the veins and arteries of New York’s economy. According to Paul Quinn Mori, president of the New York School Bus Contractors Association, “about 5% of yellow bus drivers” are licensed under the now-halted non-domiciled program. This segment, already vetted through criminal record checks and fingerprinting, was a vital salve to a longstanding driver shortage. The latest restrictions risk tipping the city into logistical chaos at precisely the wrong time.

The direct cost to immigrants is punishing. For New Yorkers like Argueta, who have built lives and careers around the city’s bumpy avenues, the federal order portends lost income and escalating hardship. In a city where economic survival already demands grit and hustle, such a one-two punch bodes ill not only for the individuals, but for their families, many of whom may be forced to reduce education spending or rely more heaivly on public assistance.

The city stands to suffer more broadly. The MTA and private contractors report growing difficulties moving children, seniors, and goods—a predictable yet avoidable problem. The broader impact on transport reliability could soon filter down to parents left scrambling for last-minute arrangements and retailers awaiting shipments. Absent a swift legal resolution, these reverberations will only deepen.

Unintended consequences, predictable pains

Beyond the city line, the second-order effects are multiplying. School administrators in the Bronx already note longer routes and delayed arrivals. Business groups warn that rising logistics costs could be passed to consumers just as inflation is beginning to ebb. There is little optimism that driver supply will rebound quickly; even if displaced workers retrain or relocate, the institutional friction is real and removal from the workforce may be permanent for many.

These local troubles illustrate a federalism in which Washington can impose vast burdens on states, often for scant benefit. The Trump administration’s threat to withhold $73 million in highway funds amounts to less than 1% of New York’s transportation budget, but the potential economic drag from workforce losses easily outpaces the threatened sum. As is so often the case, federal performance art—ostensibly performed for voters elsewhere—extracts a real price in city neighborhoods.

Some New Yorkers might eye this contretemps as parochial politics, but comparisons with other American cities suggest something larger afoot. Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston all depend heavily on immigrant drivers for school buses and freight. Early reports from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials indicate that similar policies could drive up shortages nationwide, compounding an already acute national deficit of qualified drivers.

Globally, the restriction places New York at odds with transportation trends in peer cities, where immigrant labour plays a stabilising role. In Berlin, London, and Toronto, policy-makers view access to commercial driving jobs as both a tool of integration and a practical necessity. For a city pledged to remain “open for business,” the new policy has a certain self-sabotaging air.

The longer-term implication is that New York will need to weigh sovereignty against self-interest. Overdependence on federal funding leaves the city exposed to the policy gusts from Washington, especially in an election year. A more durable strategy might entail investing in local licensing autonomy, legal advocacy, and targeted recruitment to shore up its own workforce, insulated as far as possible from the vicissitudes of national mood.

Despite these travails, the resilience of New York’s transport system should not be understated. The labyrinthine machinery of the city has survived everything from Superstorm Sandy to pandemic lockdowns. Yet the current predicament is largely self-inflicted—a manufactured scarcity emerging from administrative fiat rather than natural disaster.

What does all this portend for New Yorkers? In the short run, delays; in the medium term, higher costs and labour disruption; and in the long run, a hard reckoning with how an immigrant city balances its need for federal largesse against its enduring reliance on those who steer its buses and trucks. We reckon a less punitive, data-driven approach would serve not just immigrants, but the city’s children and economy far better.

Absent a shift in federal tone or a decisive court ruling, New York risks finding that a policy meant to enhance public safety delivers little more than empty bus seats and preventable hardship for thousands who never crashed a truck in their lives. ■