The Illinois Secretary of State, who is reportedly weighing a run for the office of Mayor of Chicago, is facing growing scrutiny over his department’s role in issuing illegal commercial driver’s licenses, in some cases to individuals who have failed to provide evidence of lawful presence, let alone proficiency in managing big rigs.
The U.S. Department of Transportation this week announced findings that the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office, through the Director of Driver Services, issued nearly 1-in-5 of its commercial licenses illegally.
The evidence was uncovered as part of the Transportation Department’s nationwide audit targeting states that issue “non-domiciled CDLs” after a spate of semi-truck crashes across the United States involving illegal immigrant drivers that were issued CDLs by Democrat-run states. Many of these accidents left victims dead.
The Illinois audit is the latest in a series of audits that have exposed systemic non-compliance with federal CDL rules, including in California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Colorado.
The issue came home to Illinois last October, when an illegal immigrant, Borko Stankovic, who was driving under a suspended Illinois CDL previously issued to a family member, swerved into opposing traffic at high speed and slammed into a Subaru sedan, killing the driver.
Expired license, wrong driver, victim killed, but who cares?
Though the license was expired in this case and not even being used by the right individual, the incident was part of a growing pattern of accidents across the United States involving illegal immigrants granted or using expired CDL’s, prompting the Transportation Department’s review.
The Illinois Secretary of State, Alexi Giannoulias’ communications manager, issued a statement on Tuesday pushing back against the Transportation Department’s claims. “Illinois is condemning the Trump administration’s assertions regarding the state’s past handling of non-domiciled commercial driver licenses (CDLs),” the spokesman, Max Walczyk, said in a statement shared with Just the News.
The office insists that the Illinois Secretary of State has followed all federal guidelines on CDL licenses and suspended issuing them last fall in response to the new rules from the Trump administration.
Giannoulias said the federal pause is damaging the state’s economy. “A strong economy depends on strong logistics,” he said in a statement. “If trucks don’t move, supply chains fail, prices rise, and families feel it in their pocketbooks. We can see the actions by the Trump administration taking their toll on our truckers and our farmers, both of whom are essential to Illinois’ economy.”
The audit, which sampled 150 non-domiciled (i.e., foreign national) CDL’s, found that 29 of them were illegally issued by the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, according to a letter sent to liberal billionaire Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Director of Driver Services Kevin Duesterhaus on Tuesday.
The audit showed that Illinois illegally issued non-domiciled CDL’s to drivers whose licenses were valid long after their lawful presence in the U.S. expired and those whose lawful presence in the U.S. was not verified. Additionally, several of the sampled records showed the state issued CDL’s to drivers that failed to provide the required proof of lawful presence in the United States.
Illinois officials told the Transportation Department that the state has issued 10,088 non-domiciled CLPs or CDLs that remain unexpired, Just the News previously reported.
The Transportation Department demanded that Illinois immediately halt the issuance of “all new, renewed, transferred, amended, corrected, reprinted, or upgraded non-domiciled CLPs and CDLs” until corrective actions are taken, to include reviewing all licenses that were issued illegally, conduct an internal audit of how such licenses are authorized, and provide a copy of those findings to the federal government.
CDL’s are for protection of the public, not illegal immigrants
“I need our state partners to understand that they work for the American people, not illegal immigrants who broke the law illegally entering our country and continue to break it by operating massive big rigs without the proper qualifications,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement announcing the audit’s findings.
The fatal crash in Illinois is only one of the recent incidents that prompted the federal review of state CDLs.
In Texas in March 2025, Solomun Weldekeal Araya reportedly caused a 17-car pileup on I-35 in Austin. The accident resulted in five fatalities. He was later charged with multiple counts of manslaughter and aggravated assault. The driver was reportedly detained by police after witnesses told law enforcement they saw him trying to leave. Officers reported Araya reportedly mainly spoke Tigrinya, a language spoken in the Horn of Africa, and not English.
Araya failed a field sobriety test and law enforcement believed he was under the influence of a drug or controlled substance. A drug test later found no evidence of drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.
In August, an illegal immigrant driver made an illegal u-turn on the Florida Turnpike in his 18-wheeler truck, causing a crash that left three dead, the Homeland Security Department said. The immigrant was identified as Harjinder Singh, an illegal alien from India.
Before the fatal crash in Florida, Singh reportedly failed his CDL driver’s test 10 times, before finally being granted a license in 2023 in Washington State, according to Fox News. Instructors also noted English proficiency, despite video evidence showing Singh struggled to speak English with police in the wake of the crash.
The Transportation Department has also conducted audits on several other states, including New York, California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, and North Carolina. The department said it uncovered “systemic non-compliance in issuing non-domiciled CDLs across those states.”
In California, the department’s audit found that “more than 25% of non-domiciled CDLs reviewed were improperly issued.” In New York, it found that more than half of non-domiciled CDLs were issued in violation of federal law. In Colorado, the fraction was 22%.
These findings led the administration to pull federal funding until the states remedy the license issuing process to prevent such failures. Secretary Duffy’s agency issued a final rule last week that would prevent foreign drivers from receiving a non-domicile CDL without undergoing a consular and interagency screening.
“While U.S. drivers are subject to strict checks through national databases for past violations—such as DUIs, reckless driving, or crash involvement—states lack the ability to access the driving records of foreigners and illegal immigrants,” the agency said. “This loophole allowed individuals with dangerous driving histories to obtain a trucking license simply by presenting an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), which does not screen for transportation safety.”
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