California revokes 17,000 commercial driver's licenses for immigrants | Hacker News Reader

California revokes 17,000 commercial driver's licenses for immigrants

pbs.org

18 pointssugarpimpdorsey19 comments

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> after discovering the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the U.S

Oopsie. Honest mistake(s) x17,000

I-9 verification has been law since .... November 1986

CDL is for work and requires i9 verification.

This is not new. Plenty of time to do it right...

One can argue that they do this because they consider these laws unjust and they are being compassionate. My pessimist view is California mass issued CDLs to foreign workers so they could help drive down trucker wages. I feel it all comes down to money. There was a big fear several years back of a severe trucker shortage looming and companies would be forced to dramatically crease per-mile pay. They found their loophole in the form of importing truckers.

The best part is that nobody really noticed what California did for years. These people are on the open road unseen and constantly on the move. They are dispersed onto the highway system so they were able to do it quietly.

I myself didn't notice it until I started seeing a dramatic increase in truckers doing dangerous things while I was on long road trips that I never saw in years past. The change was noticeable. It was not until I started researching that I realized what was going on. Then of course the tragic accident in FL brought it to national attention and here we are.

So what now? What do we do?

Chastising people for fixing their own mistakes is not a great strategy for getting mistakes fixed.

Not recognizing that the same mistake made 17,000 times “by accident” over a few years is likely not accidental is also not a great strategy for getting mistakes fixed

Every one of those required an I-9 check. This means somebody changed the procedure to not require a federally mandated check. Not a small oopsie by one person - a deliberate action from top.

The issue isn't that they were issuing CDLs to people who didn't qualify but that their work visa and license were supposed to expire around the same time so they couldn't overstay their visa and keep their job.

Or, I'm guessing this was the intent of the law they're now enforcing.

I would not assume pure malice in this case. The whole trifecta between the fed, the state and the state DMV is just complete spaghetti and need serious reform. The idea of state level drivers' licenses is really short sighted

I-9 verification has been law since .... November 1986

CDL is for work and requires i9 verification.

This is not new

This is not a matter about it being law but rather how poorly these systems mesh together thanks to government at all levels in the US being years behind Euro counterparts partially due to legislation barriers and probably cronyism

Excuse denied

You do not need any "meshing" to know that work requires work authorization. It has been the case since before most current DMV workers were born!

And yet, you do need meshing to know whether or not they have work authorization. Would recommend taking a minute to really think about what people are saying to you, instead of jumping to asinine, teenage bullshit like "excuse denied".

I9 is simple. I’ve administered it. Nothing hard. No way to mess it Up unless you just don’t do it

The word you are looking for is "state capture".

This line of reasoning is genuinely stupid, it deserves to be derided and mocked.

You can draw a straight line between these "mistakes" and these people violating traffic laws in such a way that they kill other motorists abiding by all traffic laws.

By your reasoning, I can burn your house down and kill your family, and it's absolved by apologizing.

What you don't understand is suicidal empathy eventually corrects itself with extremely violent vigilantism. And when (not if) that happens, you'll be begging for the state to come in to restore order, but they will be unable to. The state has already ceded legitimacy by not performing their duties, and what you're left with are violent gangs and warlords.

Dark triad sociopaths view this as a way to cease power. What they miss is real power comes from groups of armed individuals, not from a ballot box.

> By your reasoning, I can burn your house down and kill your family, and it's absolved by apologizing.

Yes, "your drivers license doesn't expire when your work visa does" is exactly like "burning your house down and killing your family". This is a sane, logical thing to say, and reflects an expected level of adult maturity.

Not entirely sure comparing an administrative error to burning someone's house down (how do you even know they live in a house?) and killing their family lines up with the HN guidelines.

Making the same administrator error 17,000 times is not an accident.

Administrative error is when it happens once. Not 17e3 times!

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915852

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