Judicial Watch, a conservative activist organization, has sued the Department of Transportation demanding it respond to Freedom of Information Act requests related English language enforcement, the licensing of foreign drivers, and Mexico-domiciled carriers operating in the U.S. interior.
The organization said it's suing DOT because the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has failed to respond to two August 2025 FOIA requests.
Overdrive has filed FOIA requests with FMCSA before. It's taken as long as multiple years to get a response in the longest-delayed cases and heard back almost a year later. Likewise, Overdrive is currently waiting on FOIA information from the agency after a request made in October.
On Wednesday, Judicial Watch sued DOT to compel them to respond to its requests.
“Americans were dying on our highways because of lax oversight by the Biden administration,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a press release. “President Trump and his administration are trying to clean this up. The American people should know the details of this regulatory disaster.”
The organizations' information requests mostly center around foreign drivers, safety programs, and English language enforcement in trucking.
On August 12 the group asked for information on the Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Program, which allowed increased access to the U.S. trucking market for Mexico-based entities and is now no longer a pilot program. FMCSA currently administers it under the name "Mexico long-haul program."
Judicial Watch asked for info on "the ownership, registration, and operating authority of Mexican-domiciled motor carriers with FMCSA authority, including any investigations into any entities flagged for illegal addresses" and also data from the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) on CDL holders added since 2016 grouped by "nationality, domicile (U.S. vs. foreign), and class (e.g., Class A vs. Class B)."
In that same request it asked for information about FMCSA's 2022 "Toolkit to Expedite Licensing," part of the Biden-Harris Trucking Action Plan.
The group wanted to see records "on waivers or strategies to reduce CDL delays, such as waiving the 14- day waiting period, third-party testers, or test score banking, and any evaluations of their impact on safety or underserved areas," according to the request.
Additionally, Judicial Watch asked for data "on CDLs issued to non-U.S. citizens or residents, including foreign nationals under guest worker programs, with breakdowns by country of origin."
Similarly, that request asked for information about the conversations around English Language Proficiency enforcement being downgraded from an out-of-service violation, documents on NAFTA renegotiations in 2017, and information about FMCSA's involvement in the publication of a report on Mexican trucking for the Teamsters in the same year.
[Related: Could Trump's English language proficiency mandate sideline 100,000 drivers?]
A second FOIA request on August 20 sought info on "communications about FMCSA’s tracking of Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) grantees’ Commercial Vehicle Safety Plan (CVSP) goals and performance outcomes" from January 1, 2021, to the present.
That request cast a wide net, but also did specifically inquire about records "about accidents involving foreign nationals holding CDLs" and "foreign nationals obtaining CDLs or foreign companies or entities applying for or obtaining MC numbers."
The group hailed the current Trump administration's crackdown on non-domiciled CDLs and non-English speakers in its press release.
