The Trump Administration’s Latest Crackdown on Fraud in CDL Schools Certainly Looks Like Another Way to Target Immigrants

Since good old President Trump and his reality TV bestie, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, announced their crackdown on fake and fraudulent commercial driver's licence (CDL) schools in 2025, the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have reportedly removed 9,832 "scam" schools. (Oddly, the full list only contains 9,831 of them.) Now, the latest literature released by USDOT plans to take this crackdown to the next level by partnering with the Department of Homeland Security to go after foreign drivers and those who fail to speak English — all in the name of keeping America's roads safe.

In the USDOT's statement, Duffy was quoted as saying, "We've removed over 24,000 drivers from our roads for failing to speak English, forced states to cancel over 28,000 licences illegally issued to foreign drivers, and purged over 9,500 unqualified training schools from our FMCSA registry." He added, "DHS will be a force multiplier in our efforts to clean up America's roads. President Trump is using every lever at his disposal to ensure the safety of American families."

I don't know about you, but I never thought of a foreign truck driver trying to make a life in America — which is still oddly better than where they came from — as a threat to my life and family. But DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin says that "Too many American lives have been lost in completely avoidable accidents because illegal aliens have been granted commercial driver's licences to drive trucks and 18-wheelers on America's roadways."

The statistics say otherwise

Statistics say otherwise. The Trump Administration published in its Final Rule from February of this year that 17 fatal trucking accidents, causing 30 deaths in 2025, were likely caused by non-citizen truck drivers, which is less than one per cent of fatal crashes caused by truckers each year. I also have no idea where they got those statistics... so make of that what you will.

Yet if the administration really wanted to help prevent deadly roadway accidents involving large trucks, it could take a closer look at an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) article from 2025 for ideas on how to genuinely help the industry. The IIHS found that in some states, more than 20 per cent of truck drivers admitted to dozing at the wheel, logging long miles due to either driver shortages or a need for that sweet overtime pay because the job pays so poorly. And those behind the wheel for more than eight hours were found to be twice as likely to crash. It says nothing about a driver's ability to read English being a risk factor. As someone who has driven in other countries quite a bit, I have to say: it's not that hard, especially if you drive for a living. I don't speak French, Spanish, Dutch, or German, but I often drive in countries that speak those languages and haven't got a ticket yet.

That's not to say there are no fraudulent schools or practices in the trucking industry. There's likely a reason why 109 of the 1,426 schools the FMCSA investigated over five days earlier this year voluntarily removed themselves from the training provider lists. The other 448 schools that received notices were said to have failed to meet basic safety standards, hired unqualified teachers, used improper vehicles, etc. And yes, that would be problematic.

Taking the war on immigrants to the trucking industry

Trump's administration has been on a warpath to get immigrants out of the U.S. since its first day at the White House. It wasn't long after taking office that Trump signed an executive order (March 2025) making English the nation's official language. He signed another order in April last year, "Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road For America's Truck Drivers," which renewed a requirement for truck drivers to be able to communicate in English as well as read highway signs and complete their tests. In December 2025, Duffy announced the removal of nearly 3,000 commercial driver's licence training providers from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's training facility registry, and that number has since grown.

And while the administration was already targeting immigrant drivers, it seems to have doubled down this month, despite many of these individuals following the newly edited entry-level driver training (ELDT) requirements. The latest update allows foreign individuals with green cards or permanent resident cards, as well as H-2A (temporary agricultural workers), H-2B (temporary non-agricultural workers) and E-2 (treaty investor) visa holders, to hold a CDL licence. Those who were here with temporary status, such as DACA recipients and refugees, also lost their CDL licences — at least 200,000 of them.

What we really need is more truck drivers, but we're taking them away?

One of those 200,000 individuals was former truck driver Mynor Solares, who was brought to the U.S. illegally from Guatemala when he was just two years old. He enrolled in DACA at 14, which allowed him to work in the only country he's ever known. Having lived here almost his entire life, he worked as a truck driver, owning his own trucks for the last 12 years, until April when the new ELDT Final Rule prevented him from renewing his CDL licence.

Solares told PBS in an interview, "They use the word safety. You're using it as a disguise. I believe your intentions are different, and safety could be one of them, but you're using that more as a playing card than as reality compared to what you're really trying to do." He added, "I think they're trying to push their immigration agenda into the trucking industry."

In an industry already struggling with a lack of drivers, eliminating 200,000 of them — especially experienced ones like Solares — seems irresponsible. But don't worry, Trump has a plan. At a summit in Carlisle, Pennsylvania last week, The New Republic reported that Trump told the crowd that his administration would get illegal alien truck drivers replaced with "proud American veterans. ... We're going to take veterans, and we're going to teach them a lot about driving trucks."

That's a big assumption. Truck driving is an incredibly difficult job, both mentally and physically. It's a gig that offers low pay for long hours away from family and home. There's a reason such jobs often fall to immigrants who are here struggling to make a better life for themselves — Americans won't do them.