If you’re familiar with the trucking industry, you can probably guess most of the States involved in this delay tactic – and you’d be right. Funny thing about a cleanup. The mess usually fights back.

Twenty-two states plus the District of Columbia filed two lawsuits this week to stop the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from pulling records on 17 million commercial drivers out of the Commercial Driver’s License Information System. The stated reason for wanting that data, according to the DHS subpoena itself, is investigating fraud in CDL schools and the illegal issuance of licenses to unauthorized immigrants.

That is not a small detail. It’s the whole story.

What FMCSA and DHS Actually Asked For

FMCSA requested names, dates of birth, license numbers and Social Security numbers on every CDLIS record going back five years. When AAMVA, the nonprofit that runs CDLIS on the states’ behalf, hesitated, DHS followed with a subpoena spelling out exactly why: to root out “criminal fraud regarding the issuance of CDLs to illegal aliens” and shut down bad CDL schools, according to Overdrive’s detailed account of the filings. FMCSA threatened to pull AAMVA’s federal grants and contracts if the data wasn’t produced by August 17.

A Pattern is Emerging

A good number of the states doing the suing are states FMCSA has already had to discipline for the exact kind of fraud this data would help catch.

California was ordered to revoke roughly 17,000 improperly issued non-domiciled CDLs and forfeited close to $200 million in federal funding for it. The state also refused for months to enforce English language proficiency as an out-of-service violation before quietly reversing course in December. New York fared worse in FMCSA’s own audit: 107 of 200 sampled non-domiciled CDL records, better than half, violated federal law. DOT withheld $73 million from New York in April over its failure to revoke them.

New Jersey was, by Overdrive’s count, the last state in the country still issuing non-domiciled CDLs after the federal crackdown began. Illinois issued them too, until it was forced to stop in September 2025 after feds expanded the crackdown to Chicago. Washington and Colorado were both cited for “systemic” breakdowns in how they issued the licenses. Even Pennsylvania, which co-led this week’s lawsuit, made that list.

What’s their Argument

Every state below signed onto the same core legal theory: that the demand violates the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, and that Congress never authorized CDLIS to become a federal database.

Here’s a list of participating states:

The argument over privacy protections is one that most Americans can appreciate. But at what expense? Does the safety of our highways circumvent certain public privacy data? Those are questions that a federal judge will have to decide.

The good news for Alabama is that we’re already doing it right.

Alabama Out Front

Alabama’s trucking industry didn’t need a federal subpoena to start this work. Between the state’s own English proficiency law and more than 900 drivers placed out of service for it since last fall, Alabama has been doing the cleanup these states are suing to avoid. Members can follow ATA’s ongoing advocacy on bad actors and CDL integrity at Alabama Trucking News.

A judge will eventually sort out the privacy law questions here. But it’s worth remembering who’s in this courtroom, and why.