A fatal Tennessee accident has become the catalyst for the federal Department of Transportation coming down hard on the way New York state doles out commercial drivers licenses.
“A Chinese national driving a motorcoach slammed into a vehicle in Tennessee, killing an individual and causing a major traffic jam this week. And to make matters worse: this driver had a non-domiciled CDL from NY and couldn’t speak English!” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X.
“This is EXACTLY why @POTUS and I are fighting to keep DANGEROUS foreign drivers OFF our roads,” he said in a Thursday post.
The Tuesday morning accident on Interstate 40 began when a tour bus driven by Huang Yisong , 54, of New York, hit a tractor trailer, the Tennessee Highway Patrol said, according to WSMV-TV.
Another tractor trailer then hit the bus, which went into another lane. A Volkswagen Jetta then hit the bus.
Charges against Yisong are pending.
Police said Kerry Smith, 31, of Tennessee, who drove one of the tractor-trailers in the crash, was killed. The driver of the Jetta and Yisong were injured.
Duffy indicated the accident – the latest in which immigrants were involved – was the last straw.
“@GovKathyHochul is jeopardizing driver safety EVERYWHERE by granting illegal immigrants commercial driver licenses. More than HALF of New York’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued ILLEGALLY. What’s worse, New York often fails to verify drivers’ legal status. @USDOT is taking action to end the recklessness TODAY,” Duffy posted on x.
.@GovKathyHochul is jeopardizing driver safety EVERYWHERE by granting illegal immigrants commercial driver licenses.
More than HALF of New York’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued ILLEGALLY. What’s worse, New York often fails to verify drivers’ legal status.@USDOT is taking… pic.twitter.com/EfXFbKMDQm
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) December 12, 2025
He said that if New York does not fix its broken CDL system, $73 million in federal highway aid will be yanked, according to the New York Post.
“What New York does is if an applicant comes in and they have a work authorization — for 30 days, 60 days, one year — New York automatically issues them an eight-year commercial driver’s license,” Duffy said Friday, “That’s contrary to the law.”
“But we also found that New York many times won’t even verify whether they have a work authorization, they have a visa, or they’re in the country legally,” he said.
“So they’re just giving eight-year commercial driver’s licenses to people who are coming through their DMV and sending them out on American roadways — and again they’re endangering the lives of American families,” he said.
About half of the nation;’s CDLs are issued in New York and California, which has a failure rate of about 25 percent.
In the Golden State, Duffy said 25 percent of CDLs were unlawfully issued and the state responded by revoking at least 17,000.
According to a Department of Transportation news release, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration audit found that New York’s Department of Motor Vehicles has been handing out CDLs illegally.
“Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law—a failure rate of over 53%,” the release said, adding “The DMV’s systems defaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired. New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.”
New York has been ordered to revoke illegally issued CDLs, stop issuing new ones, and to bring its policies and procedures in line with federal rules.
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