WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy shut down 270 commercial driver’s licensing (CDL) schools Monday for offenses including graduating illegal immigrant truck drivers who can’t speak English or offering subpar training facilities.
“If you’re here illegally and you can’t speak the language and you’re not well-trained, you don’t deserve to be in a big rig, driving American roads, endangering American citizens,” Duffy said at a press conference in Detroit alongside Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and federal prosecutors.
Duffy announced that his department was removing 110 CDL schools from the federal Training Provider Registry, forcing them to “immediately cease all operations.” The schools had been found to have trained 5,000 enrollees later found to be unable to speak English.
Another 160 schools were suspended for failing to meet training facility standards — sometimes claiming a single truck or small parking lot comprised their training center.
States issue commercial driver’s licenses allowing holders to cross state lines, but the federal government sets national standards and has oversight over the roughly 31,000 CDL training schools across America.
“The last administration allowed truck driving schools to self-certify to say that they meet all of the federal standards to be a certified truck driving school. What we found is many of those schools don’t actually meet that standard,” Duffy said.
“We’re not gonna have a problem. We’re gonna have truck drivers,” he added.
“You have to speak English to operate a commercial vehicle. I didn’t create that rule. President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades, and we have schools that know the rule and still pass people through their school who can’t speak the language,” Duffy continued.
“And so there’s 110 of them, through our data analysis, that are the greatest offenders. As of today, those schools are shut down. We also have shut down 160 additional schools. These are schools that, in essence, certify that they are qualified to train truck drivers. However, they don’t have adequate space.”
Duffy said 239 people died in crashes caused by non-English speaking truck drivers since the start of Trump’s term in January 2025, with California issuing most of the licenses used by operators involved in the smash-ups.
In attendance at the announcement was Delilah Coleman, 5, who suffered a brain injury in 2024 when Indian illegal immigrant Partap Singh caused a pileup with his 18-wheeler in California.
“Platinum Plus Truck Driving School in California certified 36 drivers who were later cited for these English language proficiency violations, and one of these trainees killed someone in Oklahoma,” said Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Derek Barrs .
“ASC Technical Institute in Texas certified 58 of these drivers, and one of these trainees ran a stop sign and killed a local man in a Texas county.”
Of the 110 CDL schools being shut down over English proficiency violations, Barrs said that “every single one of these schools passed at least 10 drivers who were subsequently cited for [lack of] English language proficiency during roadside inspections by law enforcement.”
Mullin, a former Oklahoma congressman and senator who said he received a CDL when he was 21 years old, recalled the strict training he was forced to undergo.
“I had to walk around the truck and explain the components of the truck and prove that I could even bleed the air brakes, where they’re at, then I got into the truck and had a drive on a long road test,” he said.
Mullin added that “almost every one” of the illegal immigrant drivers involved in deadly and near-fatal incidents were “given their CDLs in sanctuary cities.”
“By far, the worst abusers are in California under [Gov.] Gavin Newsom’s leadership,” he said. “It doesn’t just affect California. It affects our entire country.”
Mullin’s agency has been launching its own crackdown, busting more than 800 truckers for unsafe driving during a three-day operation in late July, including 36 who could not speak English.
“We put 107 trucks out of commission for individuals that had CDLs and literally on the CDLs it said ‘No Name Given,’” the DHS boss said Monday.
“These individuals are dangerous, and because of the failure from the previous administration, from the Biden administration, they killed hundreds of people and unfortunately injured thousands,” he added.
“We’re going to prioritize going after employees that are suspected of accepting payments to help illegals bypass driver’s license and CDL requirements,” continued Mullin, clarifying that the feds were looking at “individuals working … at DMVs, receiving payments from, sometimes, cartels that were wanting to move illegals … or their products.”
“We found companies that are engaging in visa fraud … We’ve seen labor laws broke, financial crimes, drug trafficking, all associated with CDL businesses.”
“If a school is giving out a CDL fraudulently, you need men with guns and prosecutors to find them, put them in jail, and make sure that they rot in jail,” said Andrew Ferguson, vice chairman of the anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance.
“And that is why this partnership has worked so well.”
