U.S. Supreme Court denies Florida request to sue over immigrant CDLs

By Michael Carroll | Legal Newsline
The Center Square

The U.S. Supreme Court last week swatted away a request from Florida to sue the states of California and Washington over allegations they issue commercial driver’s licenses, or CDLs, to undocumented immigrants who can’t read road signs.

Florida Attorney James Uthmeier filed the request with the Supreme Court last summer in the wake of a traffic accident on the Florida Turnpike involving Harjinder Singh, who allegedly made an illegal U-turn in a turnaround area that caused a collision, leading to three fatalities.

Uthmeier said on X, formerly Twitter, last August that “we filed a lawsuit against Gavin Newsom and California in the U.S. Supreme Court because their so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies for illegal aliens are harming states like Florida. California must pay for the carnage of their open-border policies and unlawful CDL programs.”

The high court responded to the request to hear Florida’s case with a one-line response: “(The) motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.”

In a filing with the high court, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office called Florida’s arguments meritless and said they lacked the type of sovereign state interests required to justify a trial before the Supreme Court. The claim that California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) does not verify CDL applicants’ legal presence or English language proficiency is unfounded, Bonta’s office argued in the January filing.

“California law requires DMV to verify legal presence and test for English proficiency, and DMV in fact does so,” Bonta’s brief states. “… DMV’s policy is to verify the applicant’s legal presence using the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system (SAVE). … SAVE query is an automated part of DMV’s processing of applications for an initial commercial driver’s license.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the SAVE database, which is supposed to provide up-to-date immigration information.

A spokesman for Uthmeier said the court’s decision marks the end of the line for Florida’s attempt to sue the two West Coast states.

“Unfortunately, the Supreme Court leaves Floridians with no avenue to hold California accountable for putting dangerous, illegal-alien truck drivers on our roads, despite the U.S. Constitution’s mandate and Congress directing the court to hear controversies between the states,” Jae Williams, press secretary for the Florida Attorney General’s Office, said in an email to the Florida Record.

The Supreme Court has a high bar for considering such requests to sue other states, according to the Scotus Blog, and they normally involve issues such as territorial boundaries or water rights.

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, who was joined by Justice Samuel Alito, argued that illegal-alien crashes are “disturbingly common” and that Florida cannot sue other states in any forum other than through the high court.

“Even under the court’s discretionary approach, it likely should have granted Florida leave to file its complaint,” Thomas said in the dissent.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year called Singh a criminal illegal alien and lodged an arrest detainer against him.

“Three innocent people were killed in Florida because Gavin Newsom’s California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an illegal alien a commercial driver’s license – this state of governance is asinine,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a prepared statement last August. “How many more innocent people must die before Gavin Newsom stops playing games with the safety of the American public?”