The Trump administration is tightening English and CDL enforcement, narrowing eligibility for non-domiciled commercial licenses, moving against sham training schools, and targeting chameleon carriers after a string of deadly crashes.
It can’t be said often enough: States around the country have granted tens of thousands of commercial drivers’ licenses (CDLs) to illegal aliens who can’t read English, don’t understand road signs, don’t know the rules of the road, and whose prior driving records are unknown.
And American drivers are dying as a result.
During the month of February, for example, illegal aliens caused two fatal crashes in Indiana. The first killed four Amish men — Henry Eicher, 50, Menno Eicher, 25, Paul Eicher, 19, and Simon Girod, 23 — after Bekzhan Beishekeev, an illegal from Kyrgyzstan, swerved into a lane of oncoming traffic, hitting their van head-on. Beishekeev came to the United States using the CBP One app developed by the Biden administration to help illegal immigrants enter the United States more easily. He was released into the country in 2023, and soon thereafter, Beishekeev got a CDL in Pennsylvania.
The second crash happened later in the month when illegal alien Singh Sukhdeep allegedly ran a red light in his big rig, causing a crash that killed 64-year-old Terry Schultz. Sukhdeep entered the United States as a minor under the Flores consent decree, which allows minors who arrive at the border to be released to a family member inside the United States. The Flores settlement has continued to shape how minors are processed and released. The first Trump administration tried to change that framework in 2019, but federal courts blocked key portions of that effort and the agreement remained in effect.
The death toll could have easily been higher given the sheer number of illegal aliens and unqualified foreigners who have been granted the right to drive 80,000 pound rigs without the requisite knowledge, experience, or skill.
This reality was highlighted by a viral video showing a Somali truck driver driving down the wrong side of Highway 61 near Troy, Missouri. He was soon found and arrested. Not surprisingly, when law enforcement administered an English proficiency test, the driver failed; he was also unable to identify road signs when asked. In Minnesota, DOT said that one third of the state’s reviewed non domiciled CDLs were issued illegally, a finding that underscores how widespread the licensing problem has become.
This is not an aberration. Audits conducted by the Department of Transportation (DOT) show that states around the country are granting CDLs to illegal immigrants in violation of federal law.
In New York, the DOT found that 53 percent of non-domiciled CDL’s, which are intended for foreign nationals who are in the country legally, were issued illegally. Auditors also found that New York had defaulted to awarding foreigners eight-year licenses regardless of when their legal status expired.
In Illinois, DOT auditors found that 20 percent, or 1 in 5, of all non-domiciled CDLs were issued illegally. DOT is now threatening to withhold $128 million in federal funds from Illinois if it fails to follow federal laws on licensing.
The issue has become so prevalent that President Donald Trump spoke about it during his State of the Union in late February. He urged Congress to pass Dalilah’s Law, named for 5-year-old Dalilah Coleman who was nearly killed after an illegal immigrant driving a semi ran a stop sign and struck her family’s vehicle. Coleman was left with brain damage following the wreck. The law would ban the “issuance of CDLs to individuals who are not citizens, lawful permanent residents, or holders of certain work visas.”
Moving Ahead
Fortunately, the Trump administration is not waiting for Congress to act. Beginning last year, it started taking substantive steps to get illegal drivers off the roads and make highways safer and is now making serious headway in putting illegal truckers, and the schools and carriers that enable them, out of business.
On February 21, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs announced new actions that include requiring CDL tests to be administered in English, upgrading the registration system with identification verification, and cracking down on non-compliant CDL training centers and carriers.
On February 18, the Department of Transportation announced that more than 550 sham CDL training schools found in violation of FMCSA safety standards had received notices of proposed removal from the national training provider registry after more than 300 investigators carried out over 1,400 on site investigations. Another 109 training providers voluntarily removed themselves from the registry after learning investigators were on the way.
One of the schools specialized in teaching school bus drivers.
Violations at the schools included instructors who themselves were not even licensed, failing to properly test drivers, and failure to teach drivers about transporting hazardous materials
Shortly thereafter, Turning Point USA’s Frontlines journalist Savanah Hernandez released a documentary, titled “The Death of American Trucking: How America’s Highways Became Unsafe,” exposing the CDL mills.
She discovered that the CDL mills provide training, testing, and “certification” in days rather than the weeks involved with legitimate CDL training. In addition, many mills advertise to specific nationalities in foreign languages, creating a unique kind of human trafficking in which the drivers, once they arrive and get their CDL, are blackmailed and forced to drive for the trucking company against their will.
Hernandez showcased the findings of Danielle Chaffin, founder and lead investigator with Highway Veritas, who called these fraudulent schemes “organized transnational crime.”
Chaffin said the problem goes back to the Obama administration, which relaxed English language proficiency requirements for CDL holders. The fraud issue increased during COVID, when there was a brief shortage of truck drivers. The FMCSA began allowing third-party sites to administer CDL exams rather than at the DMV, and the CDL schools themselves then got the greenlight to administer both the training and testing, enabling self-certification for drivers who did not meet federal requirements.
The trucking companies also use fake addresses, and similar to daycare and hospice fraud schemes that have been uncovered in Minnesota and California; several hundred trucking companies have been discovered using the same address inside small buildings, apartments, and defunct offices. Unlike other industries, according to the FMCSA, trucking companies are subject to inspections and must have a physical address; thus, they are not legally permitted to use P.O. boxes or shared mailing addresses.
In announcing the closure of so many illegal schools, Duffy stated, “American families should have confidence that our school bus and truck drivers are following every letter of the law and that starts with receiving proper training before getting behind the wheel.”
The DOT is also identifying and shutting down what are known as “chameleon carriers.” These unsavory trucking companies will get shut down for safety violations but then exploit regulatory loopholes by vanishing and then popping up somewhere else under a new name, new ownership, and new DOT number.
These carriers are three times more likely than legitimate companies to be involved in deadly crashes, according to several studies. That turned out to be exactly the case with Bekzhan Beishekeev, the criminal big rig driver who killed the four Amish men in Indiana. Late last week, the FCSMA announced that his employer, AJ Partners, was part of a chameleon carrier network that included at least four other entities; all five companies have since been permanently shut down.
In an effort to get such fraudsters off of the road, the DOT and FCSMA are currently working to modernize and strengthen federal systems that verify motor carrier identity, ownership and compliance; end self-certification for new-entry truck driving schools; require state DMVs to conduct all CDL licensing exams; and increase investigations.
A Deadly Mix: Greed, Immorality, and Activism
Proverbs 29:2 states,
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.”
Somewhere along the line, federal and state politicians began caring more about increasing the numbers of foreigners in our country, securing cheap labor, and cultivating future votes than about the lives and livelihoods of their own people. It is difficult to imagine a policy more immoral and dangerous than allowing thousands of illegal truck drivers on the road who cannot read or speak English, who cannot identify road signs, who do not know how to properly operate a semi-truck.
Think about how many road signs you read every day on the way to work or the grocery store. Exit signs, road work warnings, speed limits, one-way signs, and dozens more. Now consider how many other drivers you must trust each day to read the same signs and follow the rules.
The Trump administration is moving in the right direction by restoring stricter licensing standards, requiring English testing, and targeting the sham schools and fraudulent carrier networks that have weakened confidence in the CDL system. The goal is simple: American families should be able to trust that the drivers operating 80,000 pound commercial trucks on our roads are properly trained, lawfully licensed, and fully qualified to do the job.
Although the court battle over the earlier interim rule slowed enforcement for a time, FMCSA’s final rule took effect on March 16, 2026. The agency says there are approximately 200,000 current non domiciled CDL holders, and many who do not meet the revised eligibility standards will lose eligibility over time as their credentials come up for renewal.
“It’s long overdue,” Duffy stated on X. “Too many lives have been lost. This one is for all the victims of senseless crashes and their families.”
That includes Henry Eicher, Menno Eicher, Paul Eicher, Simon Girod, and Terry Schultz, men who, would still be alive if government leaders and judges had done their duty earlier and placed the interests of law-abiding American citizens above those of foreigners and criminals.
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