DOT Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday went on a full-on media blitz vowing to "stop at nothing" to get "very dangerous big rigs" driven by "illegal aliens" off the road.
The news followed an announcement from Department of Homeland Security that it had held an immigration raid on I-94 in Indiana, resulting in the arrest of 146 "illegal alien" truck drivers, many of whom had criminal records.
Duffy on Thursday announced the following:
- Plans to force California into compliance with English language proficiency enforcement and non-domiciled CDL issuance by withholding cash in $160 million increments
- More non-domiciled CDL issuance missteps, like licensing fully illegal aliens with no work authorization
- Plans to impose "serious consequences" on CDL mills that license drivers who are not citizens or who can't communicate in English
- Plans to "go after" carriers and shippers that hire and load those drivers
- Continued collaboration with Department of Homeland Security law enforcement to arrest and deport more drivers.
Duffy kicked off the press conference alongside newly confirmed Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Chief Derek Barrs, who spoke publicly for the first time.
Duffy began by thanking DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who announced Thursday morning a 287(g) operation with the Indiana State Police that resulted in the arrest of 223 on Indiana highways near the Illinois state line, including 146 truck drivers, though only 40 held CDLs.
"Noem actually pointed out that a number of those truck drivers that were illegal have criminal records," said Duffy. These are "individuals that have no place on American roads."
Duffy mentioned the previous ICE raid in Oklahoma and said other states across the country have also partnered with federal law enforcement.
Then Duffy pivoted to talking about non-domiciled CDLs, which DOT recently addressed with an emergency rulemaking to "put a stop to non-domiciled CDL issuance" across the country by changing licensing requirements to purge 200,000 non-citizens from trucking.
He described non-domiciled CDLs as originally "envisioned" for U.S. citizens to receive CDLs from U.S. states where they don't permanently live.
[Related: Homeland Security explains how 'illegal aliens' get CDLs in the U.S.]
"Like many of our laws, it was contorted by oftentimes liberals and liberal governors, and they started to allow foreigners to get non-domiciled CDLs," said Duffy. "We discovered and we reported this about a month ago that many of these non-domiciled CDLs ... that were given to foreigners, they were issued unlawfully."
Duffy's account of how non-domiciled CDLs came to be issued to non-citizens differs from accounts from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. OOIDA Vice President Lewie Pugh in March testified to Congress that "FMCSA issued regulatory guidance in 2019 that created a loophole for states to issue more 'non-domiciled CDLs.'"
A recent lawsuit seeking to stop DOT's emergency rulemaking stated that FMCSA created the non-domiciled CDL category in 2011 for both U.S. citizens and citizens of foreign countries.
DOT in September detailed myriad problems with non-domiciled CDL issuance, the most "egregious" of which it found in California, but the preliminary results of a President Donald Trump-ordered audit of the licenses found major issues in six states. The issues publicized in September mostly centered around CDLs that outlasted an applicant's legal length of stay in the country or went to Mexican citizens, who are usually required to get Mexican licenses.
California responded to DOT by saying it had made some mistakes, but wouldn't revoke about 20,000 non-domiciled CDLs that expired after someone's legal work authorization.
Duffy on Thursday alluded to the difficulty in getting states to comply with DOT's new rule.
"We requested that all the states go back and look at all the non-domiciled CDLs that were issued in their states to find out which ones were issued unlawfully," said Duffy. "That process is coming to a close. I think a lot of states have tried to comply, but I think we have a number of states that have been less than willing to comply with our requirements."
Duffy said "many states have issued commercial driver's licenses" that "are designated as U.S. citizens, but they're issuing those licenses to foreigners or to illegals."
Driver Harjinder Singh, DOT revealed in August, got a full term CDL from Washington despite being an asylum seeker, or a non-citizen who should only have been eligible for a non-domiciled CDL.
[Related: 'No evidence' non-domiciled CDLs bad for safety: Lawsuit seeking to block DOT's new rule]
Duffy went on to say that some states issue CDLs to drivers that don't even have a work permit. "So instead of the state finding an illegal in their state, coming in to get a commercial driver's license and actually calling ICE and saying this person should be deported, they're actually giving them a commercial driver's license," he said. "These are individuals that can drive fuel tankers, they can drive school buses," and they're "in the country unlawfully."
Overdrive inquired with DOT about specifics of where these CDLs get issued and who receives them, but did not hear back in time for publication.
Finally, Duffy addressed the major issue of drivers that just don't even have a CDL.
On October 15, driver Borko Stankovic, "was operating a semi-truck without a valid commercial license, when he swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a Subaru Crosstrek," killing its driver on U.S. 20 in Indiana, according to a Department of Homeland Security release. In 2024, FMCSA recorded 35,476 "Operating a CMV without a CDL" violations, comprising almost 18% of all driver OOS violations among trucks.
"We're seeing the consequences of" unlicensed or unqualified drivers, said Duffy. "We're seeing more crashes, more consequences, more deaths on American roadways."
What's he going to do about it?
"We have a lot of money that flows from this department to our states," he said. "You saw that we pulled $40 million from the state of California because they were refusing to comply with our English proficiency language requirements. ... We're getting information from state troopers in the state of California that Gavin Newsom has specifically told them, 'don't comply with this requirement.'"
California has also been "less than cooperative" in reviewing its non-domiciled CDL issuance and "we're in the process of going through a review, and we have the opportunity to pull $160 million of additional dollars from the state of California," said Duffy.
Duffy noted that's about 4% of the money DOT allocates to California. "We'll be able to pull another 4% and another 4% if they don't comply," he continued. "Eventually, we can pull their ability to issue commercial driver's licenses. We will get compliance."
CDL mills, carriers, and shippers face 'serious consequences'
The major trade organizations representing CDL schools in April wrote to FMCSA calling out the "threat" from "unscrupulous" schools that print CDLs for bad drivers. The training associations said they reported bad schools to FMCSA, which is tasked with policing its training provider registry, but no action had been taken, sometimes for more than a year. FMCSA has since removed some CDL schools from its training provider registry, but Overdrive reporting found those schools by and large had long since stopped offering CDL training.
"I think it begs the question also who is testing these drivers?" asked Duffy. Although some states offer the CDL knowledge test in a few languages, all testers must conduct all CDL skills tests in English.
"A lot of these students are coming through these schools and they can't speak the language," said Duffy. "Many of them don't have the skills to operate these big rigs on the roads, but nonetheless these schools are certifying that they're qualified" in some cases without "documentation" of citizenship of the United States.
"We are going to go after the CDL mills," Duffy added. "We are going to take a hard look at those individuals, and there will be serious consequences for them."
Carriers who hire non-English speaking drivers will get a hard look, too, he said. "We are diving into the companies that hire these drivers that may not have a license, that may not have a lawfully issued license, or do not speak the language," he said. "These companies will be held to account."
Later, speaking to Fox News, Duffy said he would also hold shippers, "the people who load up these rigs," to account. "There's a lot of interactions between the shipper and the trucker, and if you can't speak English, I think those shippers should" not load the truck piloted by such a driver.
Duffy said that DOT doesn't have a large law enforcement presence, so he's grateful for DHS Secretary Noem's "help in not only bringing attention to this matter, but actually using ICE agents to go out and make sure that we have compliance with some of our laws that are on the books from DOT."
FMCSA Administrator Barrs opened up his own comments thanking DHS, Indiana and DOT's other law enforcement partners. Barrs has almost 30 years in law enforcement experience himself. He promised to use "every tool in our toolbox, which includes the entry-level driver training schools where safety truly begins."
That entry-level training, in which a new driver "gets the training that he needs to be a professional driver," Barrs said, "you can't make that up on the back end. It's got to be on the front end. It's very, very important," and "where the rubber meets the road. ... We want to ensure every driver on the road is qualified and has safety in the forefront of their minds because we only want professional and safe drivers on our roadways."
For that, he added, "they must follow our standards. And if you do not want to follow our standards, then you need to stay out of the profession."
Barrs promised to announce soon new steps against deficient CDL schools with a warning: "As the administrator of FMCSA, I want to make this perfectly clear to the driver training schools: If you are not following the rules and you're not doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, we're going to ensure that we put you out of business. We're going to come after you."
[Related: Congressmen to DOT: 'CDL mills' probe should be high priority]
