FMCSA Non-Domiciled CDL Lawsuit , How the Rule Survived a Court Challenge and What Comes Next for 200,000 Drivers

The drivers eating chicken sandwiches at the lunch counter at a specific truck stop on Interstate 95 just north of West Palm Beach have been chatting to each other about the same thing for the past six months. It’s the kind of place with a half-empty lot at three in the afternoon. their CDLs. In particular, if they are about to be taken away by the federal government.

Jorge Rivera Lujan, a DACA recipient who has been a professional truck driver for eleven years and has lived in the United States since he was two years old, is one of the lead plaintiffs in the federal case that has been discreetly testing what the future holds for an estimated 200,000 working truck drivers. The D.C. Circuit’s announcement on May 5, 2026, did not meet his expectations.

The FMCSA non-domiciled CDL lawsuit’s backstory is one of those protracted, structural battles that likely doesn’t receive the cable news attention it merits. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released an interim final rule in September 2025 with the title “Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers Licenses.” The wording appeared to be bureaucratic. In actuality, the rule effectively excluded DACA recipients, asylum seekers, refugees, and asylees—all of whom are legally permitted to work in the United States—and restricted who could hold a non-domiciled CDL to those on H-2A agricultural visas, H-2B non-agricultural visas, or E-2 treaty investor visas.

Bypassing the customary notice-and-comment procedure, the rule went into force nearly immediately. The agency defended this approach by claiming that drivers who were about to lose their eligibility would have applied at the last minute if they had received advance warning. In November 2025, the D.C. Circuit halted the regulation, concluding that FMCSA had not shown any quantifiable safety connection to immigration status and had probably breached the statutory requirement to consult states.

Despite the agency’s first setback, FMCSA resumed its operations. It released an updated Final Rule on February 13, 2026. The revised version fixed the procedural flaws the court had pointed out while keeping the same limited eligibility list. Over 8,000 public comments were processed by the agency. It recorded state consultations. It employed a nationwide audit to expose pervasive discrepancies in the interpretation of Employment Authorization forms by state licensing clerks, especially with regard to the immigration codes listed on the forms.

In the end, 28 states and jurisdictions were cited by FMCSA for issuing non-domiciled CDLs that did not adhere to federal regulations. Due to persistent non-compliance, California and New York eventually lost federal assistance. On March 16, 2026, the revised Final Rule became operative.

The entire fight was altered by the May 5, 2026 verdict, which was 2-1 against stopping the new rule. After reviewing the updated February version of the regulation, the same court that had halted the September version came to the conclusion that the agency had sufficiently addressed the legal flaws. The petitioners had not demonstrated a significant chance of success on the merits, according to the majority.

They also agreed with the FMCSA’s contention that the agency could legitimately limit eligibility to visa categories with consular and interagency vetting built in because states are unable to consistently verify the foreign driving histories of non-domiciled applicants. The matter was expedited by the court. The deadline for petitioners’ briefs is June 15. The deadline for the government’s answer is July 15. August 5 is the deadline for final briefs. Although the schedule is aggressive by federal appeals norms, the rule is still in effect while the case is being heard.

The discrepancy between the safety reason and the actual facts is the most challenging aspect of this argument when dealing with the legal language for an extended period of time. Earlier in the proceedings, FMCSA acknowledged that it did not have “sufficient evidence, derived from well-designed, rigorous, quantitative analyses, to reliably demonstrate a measurable empirical relationship between the nation of domicile for a CDL driver and safety outcomes in the United States.”” One of the reasons the court first stopped the rule was that admission, which was made during the initial rulemaking.

According to the most recent data, which was cited by the same court that granted the stay in November, non-domiciled drivers account for barely 0.2% of fatal crashes despite making up roughly 5% of CDL holders. Wendy Liu, a public citizen attorney, stated in a May House hearing that DOT does not have any statistics demonstrating that non-citizens cause more crashes than citizens of the United States.

Instead of focusing on direct safety numbers, the FMCSA’s new framing highlights the verification gap, which is a significantly different and more legally sound case. It was accepted by the court. In the end, the drivers might or might not win on the merits.

This human aspect is really challenging. Lujan and other drivers have dedicated their professional life to earning a consistent salary, which in the trucking industry, especially long-haul, may reach $80,000 to $120,000 annually with expertise. They bought trucks. Leases have been signed by them. On the basis of their CDLs, they have sent children to school. Every month, about 8,000 non-domiciled CDLs are up for renewal. Drivers who do not meet the new visa categories are unable to continue working after the renewal date.