Blakeman Slams Hochul Over Commercial Licenses for Undocumented Drivers as DMV Cites Federal Rules

The debate over commercial driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants is truck-driving New York City politics—and public safety—into contentious territory.

Each day, around 13,000 commercial trucks rumble across the George Washington Bridge, a vital but creaking lifeline for New York City. This logistical artery, feeding the city’s insatiable appetite, now finds itself at the clogged heart of a political dispute. Bruce Blakeman, the Republican county executive of Nassau and presumptive gubernatorial nominee, has fired a fusillade at Governor Kathy Hochul: under her administration, he claims, more than half of New York’s coveted commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) have been issued to immigrants residing in the country without legal status. In a city where public safety and the politics of immigration collide with unfailing regularity, such allegations portend a stormy campaign—and raise uncomfortable questions about the regulation of those behind the wheel of 80,000-pound vehicles.

At the core of the dispute are a series of recent incidents and bureaucratic oddities. The New York Post revealed last autumn that the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) issued CDLs with fields ominously labeled “No Name Given,” or marked as “non-domiciled.” One such license surfaced in Oklahoma, during a raid in which 125 undocumented immigrants were apprehended, prompting complaints from Governor Kevin Stitt of that state and lending fresh fuel to Blakeman’s charges. Stretching the narrative further, Blakeman linked two fatal crashes—one in Tennessee and another in Indiana, both allegedly involving drivers with New York-issued CDLs and uncertain immigration status—to deficiencies in vetting and enforcement under the Hochul administration.

Such claims are denied, with a predictable bureaucratic shrug, by the governor’s office. Albany points out that CDL eligibility is ultimately set by federal regulation, not at the whim of state lawmakers. The DMV insists it verifies identification via federal employment documents (notably the Employment Authorization Document, or EAD), squaring with longstanding guidance from Washington. The Cuomo-era “Green Light Law”—extended and unmodified during Hochul’s tenure—permits non-citizens, including those out-of-status, to obtain standard driver’s licenses. But CDLs, say state officials, still require lawful presence as defined through federal forms. The repeated refrain: procedures are followed, full stop.

In New York City, a place where the concentric circles of labor, law, and opportunity blur, the matter is far from academic. Nearly 40% of residents are foreign-born; many industries depend on workers with murky or pending legal status. The city’s vast logistics needs—and notoriously puny pool of homegrown truck drivers—mean that its lifeblood flows in part through these licensing systems. With trucking firms and gig-economy haulers keen to fill jobs that “hard-working New Yorkers” will not or cannot take, the demand for drivers remains buoyant.

Should the allegations stick, fears may rise not just about who is in the cabin, but also about how public safety is weighed against economic necessity. The spectre of serious crashes stirred by insufficiently vetted operators could, if not handled properly, taint decades of incremental policy aimed at integrating immigrants into the city’s regulated workforce. New York’s urban tapestry, always contingent on the gears of commerce moving smoothly, cannot easily afford a regime that either overlooks safety for labor-shortage relief or ratchets up xenophobic suspicion in the quest for political advantage.

To complicate matters, the second-order effects ripple outward. A if-not-here-then-elsewhere logic applies: New York’s approach is mirrored or challenged by other states with divergent ideologies and priorities. Oklahoma’s recent complaints suggest a patchwork of enforcement; Tennessee and Indiana provide further evidence that New York CDLs travel well beyond city limits. In the febrile atmosphere of a gubernatorial campaign—especially with echoes of Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric—these cases risk being weaponised for blunt political ends, rather than cool-headed policy review.

Federal law, to which New York must nominally cleave, is hardly robust. The Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the REAL ID Act set the parameters for vetting, but leave much discretion in the hands of state administrators. Washington’s muddled “lawful presence” standard, as interpreted, does permit truckers with EADs and pending status to gain commercial licenses, provided their paperwork is in satisfactory order. Yet, where documentation lapses (an errant “No Name Given,” for instance) suggest deeper problems in both verification and interagency coordination—a not-uncommon outcome when massive systems meet edge-case reality.

Wider questions about immigration, labour, and regulatory pragmatism

The dilemma is not unique to New York. Several states—including California and Illinois—also issue regular driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, on the theory that safer roads merit inclusive policy. But most draw the line at CDLs, selectively balancing public safety and economic utility. New York’s approach, which relies on national norms but endures sharp local criticism, reflects a city and state perennially torn between pragmatic accommodation and symbolic enforcement. It is not lost on observers that many of the jobs at issue—goods hauling, waste removal, long-haul deliveries—are precisely those native-born New Yorkers shun.

For New Yorkers, the stakes hardly need exaggeration. The city requires both rigorous vetting of those operating massive vehicles on crowded streets and a regulatory framework grounded in reality. A system oblivious to risk, or so hamstrung by partisan theater that it cannot evolve, bodes poorly for all. The answer is neither a blanket embargo on non-citizen drivers nor credulous acceptance of patchy paperwork, but serious, data-driven oversight that sanctuary and safety alike depend on.

We reckon the current controversy, while animated by campaign bluster and sporadic tragedy, should serve as a prompt for Congressional action. Washington could clarify the eligibility criteria for CDLs, standardise documentation, and improve the interoperability of databases to avoid glaring oversights. In the mean time, neither defiant statehouse grandstanding nor headlines about anonymous truckers will fix what ails both the city’s streets and its politics. Bitter lessons from this episode suggest only that the intersection of immigration and public safety is a permanent feature—not a temporary detour—on New York’s bumpy road.

The city that relies on trucks, and the people who drive them, deserves more than slogans and scapegoating. Policy, not posturing, is the only safe way forward. ■