The Trump administration has shut down 11 California commercial driving schools and suspended scores more nationwide, citing widespread failures in English language proficiency among commercial drivers.
DOT Secretary Sean Duffy, 53, announced the closures at a press conference Monday in Detroit alongside Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and federal prosecutors. The action targeted 110 schools ordered closed and another 160 suspended for failing to meet training facility standards, with California bearing a heavy share of the enforcement.
California ranked second among states for schools shuttered over English proficiency failures, trailing only Pennsylvania and Texas, which each had 13 closures, according to Department of Transportation documents. The affected California schools stretched across Southern California, the Bay Area and the Central Valley.
Several of the closed schools had marketed themselves as multilingual, with at least two advertising instructors who spoke “English, Punjabi, Hindi & Spanish!” The proficiency failures involved more than 5,000 drivers nationwide who could not pass English language requirements.
Duffy framed the enforcement as a public safety imperative tied to long-standing federal rules. “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,” he said.
He emphasized the regulatory history behind the action. “You have to speak English to operate a commercial vehicle. I didn’t create that rule. President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades, and we have schools that know the rule and still pass people through their school who can’t speak the language,” Duffy continued.
Mullin singled out California for particular criticism, calling the state the “worst abusers” of commercial driver’s licenses. “By far, the worst abusers are in California under [Gov.] Gavin Newsom’s leadership,” he said. “It doesn’t just affect California. It affects our entire country.”
Mullin also claimed that “almost every one” of the undocumented immigrant drivers involved in deadly and near-fatal incidents was “given their CDLs in sanctuary cities.” California has maintained sanctuary state status since 2018, limiting cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
The administration tied the enforcement to specific crash cases. Partap Singh, an undocumented immigrant from India who had obtained a California commercial driver’s license, drove an 18-wheel tractor-trailer that collided with a vehicle carrying 7-year-old Dalilah Coleman and her father in 2024. Coleman was left permanently disabled from the crash.
When asked for comment on the California closures, DOT officials pointed to a recent Midwest operation that detained more than four dozen undocumented immigrant truck drivers. About 41% of the drivers detained in that operation received their commercial licenses from either California or New York.
The enforcement action represents one of the largest federal crackdowns on commercial driving schools in recent years, with the administration signaling continued scrutiny of both training facilities and individual drivers.
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