DOT and DHS Shut Down 110 Trucking Schools Tied to 5,000 English-Proficiency Failures

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Monday in Detroit that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is removing 110 commercial driver’s license schools from the federal Training Provider Registry, forcing them to stop federally recognized entry-level driver training immediately. Duffy said those schools account for more than 5,000 drivers later cited for failing English-language proficiency checks at roadside inspections. Each of the 110 had certified at least 10 such drivers, according to FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs. Officials also said more than 160 additional schools are being shut down or suspended for inadequate facilities, missing classrooms, training lots too small for truck maneuvers, or unlicensed instructors. Combined, the actions cover about 270 providers.

Duffy called the 110 schools the “greatest offenders.” “What we are announcing is an emergency executive shutdown of 110 driving schools,” he said. “These are driving schools that account for 5,000 of the violations for English proficiency.” He added that the English rule is not new: commercial drivers have been required since the 1930s to have enough English to read signs and deal with officers. President Trump’s April 2025 executive order directed that drivers who fail the check be placed out of service. “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. Barrs said Platinum Plus Driving School in Fresno, California, certified 36 drivers later cited for language violations, including one tied to a fatal crash in Oklahoma. ASC Technical Institute in Texas certified 58 such drivers; officials said one trainee ran a stop sign and killed a man in Texas. Duffy said 10 skills testers in one state issued more than 2,000 CDLs to people who later could not meet the English standard.

DOT figures released with the announcement put more than 28,000 commercial drivers out of service for English-proficiency failures since June 2025, more than 30,000 licenses canceled that the department says were illegally issued to foreign drivers, and more than 8,000 unqualified schools already purged from the FMCSA registry. Officials said commercial drivers who could not demonstrate English proficiency have been involved in crashes causing at least 239 deaths since the current administration began, a count they said comes from police and accident reports. Mullin said California is “by far the worst” under Gov. Gavin Newsom. Duffy said “a lot of the licenses unlawfully issued come from California, New York, a lot from Illinois,” and that those drivers are often stopped in the Midwest. Mullin said an Oklahoma Interstate 40 operation found more than 100 operators whose CDLs listed “No name given,” with licenses originating in California and New York. The announcement followed CBP’s Yuma Sector arrests of 95 illegal-alien commercial drivers, 76 of them holding California CDLs.

HSI is running a synchronized sweep of more than 200 driving schools across 23 Special Agent in Charge offices, targeting CDL-related businesses, carriers, and employers for fraud, unauthorized employment, identity-document fraud, and related crimes. The Justice Department is standing up a task force on trucking fraud in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. FMCSA has launched a nationwide audit of third-party CDL skills testers and state oversight of those testers. In July the agency sent 175 investigators into 40 states to examine nearly 400 schools. The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, with Vice President JD Vance’s involvement on the trucking side, framed the school closures as moving upstream from individual drivers to the training and testing pipeline. English-proficiency rules remain in effect while a legal challenge proceeds in the D.C. Circuit. Duffy said more closures are coming and that the issue is “an American safety issue,” not a red-blue one.