Texas law proposal targets fraudulent digital Mexican CDLs

Trucks wait in line to enter the U.S. at the World Trade Bridge port of entry on the border with Mexico in Laredo, Texas. (Cheney Orr/Bloomberg)

Concern that some Texas drivers obtain valid digital Mexican commercial driver licenses through fraudulent means has prompted state police to seek legislation barring those credentials from use in intrastate freight transportation.

The issue surfaced during an Aug. 17 interim House Transportation Committee hearing chaired by state Rep. Tom Craddick, where the Texas Department of Public Safety called for legislation to close what it described as a loophole involving Mexican commercial driver licenses.

Roadway crashes in Texas have been linked to untrained truck drivers who allegedly purchased valid, Mexican-issued commercial driver licenses, according to testimony from DPS Major Omar Villareal.

Villareal said unsafe drivers are exploiting provisions originally intended for cross-border commerce under the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He argued that fraudulently obtained Mexican licenses allow drivers to gain automatic driving privileges in the United States without verification of commercial driving skills, training or safety records. Eliminating automatic recognition of Mexican and Canadian CDLs for intrastate operations would help curb the fraud, he said.

According to DPS, Mexico’s 2021 transition to exclusively digital Licencias Federales de Conductor, or LFCs, fueled a surge in licenses fraudulently issued by corrupt officials within Mexico’s Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation.

DPS said fraudulent LFCs are being used in Texas intrastate trucking by drivers working for U.S. carriers and owner-operators engaged in cabotage, which is the practice of hauling a load from Mexico into the U.S. and then illegally remaining in the U.S. to haul domestic freight. Mexican and Canadian truck drivers are permitted to transport international freight across the border and return to their place of domicile.

The agency said the fraudulent LFCs have also surfaced in other states. Since 2019, DPS has recorded 3,727 commercial vehicle crashes outside the Texas-Mexico border region involving drivers holding Mexican-issued CDLs, resulting in 192 fatalities and 2,735 injuries.

Villareal urged lawmakers to introduce legislation barring Mexican- and Canadian-issued CDLs from use in intrastate freight transportation.

“Texas law enforcement has to honor that [Mexican] CDL because the federal government says so. The state requires them to,” Villareal said. “These drivers are here in Texas, undercutting American labor, working for American companies. These are unqualified drivers and they’re placing the public at risk.”

Villareal described a recurring pattern involving foreign nationals, including some from Europe and South America, who crossed into the United States through Mexico, reside in Texas and are found during inspections or crash investigations to possess valid Mexican CDLs that authorities believe were obtained fraudulently.

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A truck crosses the Pecos River Bridge near Del Rio, Texas. (halbergman/Getty Images)

“The driver in the U.S., never a citizen of Mexico, would reach to a contact by word of mouth into the Mexican government, wire money over and instantly would receive a digital Mexican license. We started seeing an upward trend in commercial vehicle crashes with these drivers,” Villareal alleged. “If you go back and you look at the North American Free Trade Agreement [and] the USMCA, the intent for reciprocal agreement with that Mexican LFC was for the international transportation of goods. It was never intended to be used for intrastate purposes.”

Villareal said Mexican CDLs can be obtained within a week for $2,000 to $3,000. He said DPS has tracked the alleged fraud through investigations stemming from roadside inspections and crash probes.

Drivers holding Mexican-issued CDLs are often foreign nationals from countries including Russia, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Panama, Villareal said. He added that some have been U.S. citizens who lost their CDL privileges and obtained Mexican licenses to remain employed in trucking.

Villareal said he has documented multiple cases involving drivers who admitted obtaining the licenses.

“The reason I’m so familiar with it is these officers would document it on a complaint form,” he said. “We would, in turn, do an administrative audit of the carrier that employed them. And of course, we’d find a history that they were hiring these type of drivers because they’re undercutting American labor. They can pay this driver $25 a run or $50 a day. They’re just taking advantage of the system and taking advantage of that driver at the peril of the motoring public.”

Texas Trucking Association supports legislative push

Also backing the proposed legislation is John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association.

“Safety remains the standard, and the standard should apply to everyone. There are approximately 3.5 million commercial drivers operating commercial motor vehicles, with several hundred thousand on Texas highways. The CDL is the foundation in determining whether those drivers have met minimum qualifications necessary to operate safely,” Esparza said. “A CDL is not simply an identification card. It is a professional credential representing that the person behind the wheel has satisfied specific licensing, testing, identity and safety requirements.”

Esparza said the association supports proactive measures to prevent unsafe drivers from reaching highways rather than relying on roadside enforcement to identify them.

“The industry continues to see an uptick in outlaw operators — you don’t know where they came from,” he said. “They’re not properly licensed. The equipment is in bad shape. [They] are looking to go around the law to get here and get a job. This doesn’t mean they are from Mexico; they’ve been coming through Mexico given our proximity. But the second we pass legislation, those numbers begin to change very quickly.”