Immigrant Truckers File Lawsuit To Stop 20,000 CDL Cancellations In California

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is facing a class-action lawsuit over plans to cancel nearly 20,000 immigrant truckers’ commercial driver’s licenses, a move plaintiffs say would cause widespread disruption, according to Fox News.

The case was filed Tuesday by the Asian Law Caucus, the Sikh Coalition, and the firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, seeking to block the DMV from revoking the licenses. According to the complaint, the cancellations would “result in mass work stoppages” beginning Jan. 5, 2026.

In a joint statement, the two advocacy groups said: “This class-action lawsuit is brought on behalf of the Jakara Movement and five commercial drivers who have been deprived of their rights and livelihoods.”

They added that although officials said licenses would start being reissued on Dec. 17, “the state has neither reissued any of the contested licenses nor created a process to remedy the date issue with no indication that it plans to do so before January 5.”

Fox News writes that the lawsuit says the DMV notified 17,299 drivers on Nov. 6 that their non-domiciled CDLs would be canceled on Jan. 5 due to errors with license expiration dates. Another 2,700 drivers received similar letters in December, with cancellations scheduled for mid-February.

State law requires CDL expiration dates to align with a driver’s work authorization or legal status. Instead, the suit claims the DMV issued cancellation notices rather than correcting the dates.

“For all 19,999 immigrants, the DMV intends to cancel their commercial licenses without affording any opportunity to obtain a corrected license or to contest the cancellation,” the lawsuit states.

It also alleges that “despite its own regulation, the DMV did not consistently ensure that a CDL’s expiration date matched the end of a person’s period of work authorization or lawful presence.”

Plaintiffs say the consequences extend beyond the drivers, noting they “play an indispensable role in our local and national economies” and warning that “the sudden loss of their ability to work threatens not only their livelihoods but also the stability of our supply chains and services on which the public depends.”

The filing includes examples of alleged errors, including a driver whose CDL already matches his work authorization and a Jakara Movement member who was “pressured into surrendering his CDL, out of fear that his non-commercial driver’s license would already be cancelled.” The suit also says the “DMV has not explained how it identified 19,999 licenses as out of compliance with state law and how it can ensure that its determinations are accurate.”

The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the DMV to provide corrected licenses “without interruption to their driving privileges.”