Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the emergency shutdown of 270 commercial driver’s license schools on Sunday in Detroit, citing English proficiency violations, fraudulent training operations, and a trail of fatal crashes on American highways.
The federal action, split between 110 schools permanently removed from the federal Training Provider Registry and 160 schools suspended for substandard facilities, marks the most aggressive enforcement move yet in a broader crackdown on CDL fraud that has accelerated since President Trump returned to office.
At the center of the case: 239 people killed in crashes involving commercial motor vehicles driven by individuals not proficient in English, a figure Duffy tied directly to the shuttered schools. Those deaths have occurred since January 2025.
The 110 schools subject to immediate, permanent removal trained more than 5,000 drivers who were later cited during roadside inspections for failing to meet federal English-language proficiency requirements. Those requirements are not new. Duffy made the point bluntly at the joint press conference:
“What we are announcing is an emergency executive shut down of 110 driving schools. So, these are driving schools that account for 5,000 of the violations for English proficiency. What I mean by that is, you have to speak English to operate a commercial motor vehicle. I didn’t create that rule, President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades.”
The schools, Duffy said, “know the rule and still pass people through their school who can’t speak the language.” That is not a paperwork oversight. It is a deliberate business decision, one that put unqualified drivers behind the wheel of 80,000-pound rigs.
The remaining 160 schools were suspended for a different category of failure. As Duffy described it, these operations claimed to be qualified CDL training providers but lacked the basic physical infrastructure to do the job. Some had no adequate space for students to practice turns or navigate cones. Some could not even put a student behind the wheel. Others employed unlicensed instructors.
The Washington Examiner reported that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is also investigating the additional 160 schools and conducting a nationwide audit of CDL testing providers. Nearly 30,000 drivers have been placed out of service for English-language violations nationwide.
Duffy placed blame squarely on the prior administration. He criticized the Biden administration for eliminating “long standing safety rules that make sure we get well qualified drivers driving big rigs” and for allowing truck driving schools “to self-certify”, a system that amounted to letting schools grade their own homework.
DHS Secretary Mullin was more direct. As the New York Post reported, Mullin told reporters:
“These individuals are dangerous because of the failure from the previous administration, from the Biden administration. They killed hundreds of people and, unfortunately, injured thousands.”
The self-certification loophole, as Duffy described it, created a perverse incentive. Schools could claim compliance without proving it. The result was a pipeline of commercially licensed drivers who could not read road signs, understand dispatch instructions, or communicate with emergency responders, all while operating vehicles that can flatten a minivan.
The Trump administration has already moved on multiple fronts to address the fallout. Earlier actions pulled tens of thousands of trucker licenses from non-citizens and tapped military veterans to fill the gaps left in the workforce.
Just The News reported that the announcement was part of a broader White House anti-fraud initiative that has identified approximately $250 billion in fraud since Trump returned to office. The joint press conference in Detroit brought together officials from the Transportation, Justice, and Homeland Security departments, a signal that the administration views CDL fraud as a multi-agency enforcement priority, not a niche regulatory matter.
The numbers keep growing. Newsmax reported that more than 28,000 drivers have been placed out of service for English-language proficiency violations since June 2025, and more than 30,000 licenses illegally issued to foreign drivers have been cancelled.
Duffy framed the enforcement in plain terms:
“We want well-skilled, well-trained truck drivers on American roads. And if you are not well skilled, you’re not well trained, and you’re not well licensed, you have no place driving an 18-wheeler, 80,000 pounds on American roadways, endangering the safety of American citizens.”
The enforcement effort has not gone unchallenged. A federal judge previously blocked DHS from reviewing 17 million trucker records, a ruling that shielded illegal immigrant CDL holders from scrutiny and complicated the administration’s enforcement timeline.
Mullin identified California as the state issuing the most licenses to non-English-speaking drivers involved in the fatal crashes. “By far, the worst abusers are in California under [Gov.] Gavin Newsom’s leadership,” Mullin said. “It doesn’t just affect California. It affects our entire country.”
That claim carries weight given the nature of interstate trucking. A driver licensed in Sacramento can haul freight through Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and beyond. A single state’s lax standards become every state’s safety problem.
Duffy reinforced the point: “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.”
The administration’s trucking enforcement has extended beyond licensing into active roadside operations. Operation Highway Shield, a targeted enforcement initiative, has already netted dozens of immigration detentions and safety violations in a coordinated crackdown on the trucking sector.
The 270 schools shut down this week may be the beginning, not the end. The Associated Press reported that the Transportation Department has confirmed shutdowns of more than 550 commercial driving schools nationwide after federal inspectors conducted 1,426 site visits in December. Of those, 448 schools failed to meet basic safety standards. Another 109 schools removed themselves from the registry when they learned inspections were planned, a telling detail about how many operators knew they could not withstand scrutiny.
An additional 97 schools remain under investigation for compliance issues.
Todd Spencer, president of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, offered a blunt assessment of how the industry arrived at this point: “Rather than fix retention problems and working conditions, some in the industry chose to cut corners and push undertrained drivers onto the road. That approach has undermined safety and devalued the entire trucking profession.”
That observation cuts to the core incentive structure. Cheap, undertrained drivers willing to work for less undercut legitimate operators who invested in proper training and licensing. The fraudulent schools were not just a safety hazard, they were an economic weapon against law-abiding truckers and the companies that employ them.
The broader pattern of the administration targeting illegal immigrant access to taxpayer-funded systems extends well beyond trucking. The Treasury Department has separately moved to strip illegal immigrants of billions in refundable tax credits, part of a government-wide effort to close loopholes that rewarded unlawful presence.
Several questions remain open. The 239 deaths figure, while cited by multiple administration officials, has not been linked to a specific published dataset or investigation report. The time period, January 2025 to the present, is established, but the methodology for correlating those fatalities with English-language non-proficiency has not been publicly detailed.
The names of the 270 shuttered schools have not been released. The specific Biden-era regulatory changes Duffy referenced, the rules he says were eliminated, have not been identified by statute or executive order number in any public statement so far. And the enforcement mechanism itself, described as an “emergency executive shut down,” has not been formally defined in terms of whether schools’ certifications are revoked, suspended, or subject to some other administrative action.
These are details that matter. The administration’s case is strong on its face, 5,000 violations, 239 deaths, schools that could not even put a student behind the wheel. But the full accounting, including the data behind the death toll and the specific regulatory failures of the prior administration, should be made public.
Two hundred thirty-nine people are dead. The schools that trained their killers were, until this week, still in business. The question worth asking is not whether this crackdown was justified, it is why it took this long.
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