New York is the 8th state found to have improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants

New York is the eighth state found to routinely issue commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants that are valid long after they are no longer legally authorized to be in the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday, and he threatened to withhold $73 million in highway funds unless the system is fixed and any flawed licenses are revoked.

New York was the fourth state run by a Democratic governor called out publicly by Duffy in his effort to make sure truck and bus drivers are qualified to either haul passengers or 80,000 pounds of cargo down the highway. He previously questioned similar practices in California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

But letters have gone out to other states as well without fanfare, or comments from Duffy, including Republican-run Texas and South Dakota.

In addition to finding licenses that remained valid longer than they should have, these federal audits have also discovered instances where the states may not have even checked a driver’s immigration status before issuing a license. Investigators check a small sample of licenses in each state.

Duffy launched the review this summer, but it became more prominent after a truck driver who was not authorized to be in...