The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the emergency removal of 110 commercial driver's license schools from its national training registry on Sunday, after federal officials said the schools had certified more than 5,000 drivers who failed English language proficiency requirements. The announcement came during a Detroit press event where the U.S. Secretary of Transportation appeared alongside several other national leaders to unveil details of the sweeping new program.
According to FOX 2 Detroit, the program targets hundreds of truck driving schools as part of a newly formed initiative called Joint Task Force Crossroads of America, which focuses on illegal commercial driver's license schools and unvetted drivers on the nation's highways. The task force was created specifically to address both problems together, and law enforcement involvement spans all levels of government, tackling various forms of fraud tied to the trucking industry. Federal officials said the Department of Justice formally established the task force the same day, bringing together all nine U.S. Attorneys' offices across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio alongside seven federal law enforcement agencies, according to a Department of Justice announcement.
Hundreds More Schools Facing Removal
Beyond the 110 emergency removals, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued notices of proposed removal to more than 160 additional CDL training schools across 40 states, the agency said, after July site inspections turned up severe deficiencies. As reported by The Trucker, one provider was found operating a classroom inside a school bus that was itself parked inside a trailer. The same report notes that 175 federal investigators fanned out across 40 states in July to conduct nearly 400 on-site audits of entry-level driver training providers.
The stakes behind those inspections are steep. Federal motor carrier safety records show that drivers certified by the 160 schools facing proposed removal are tied to 239 commercial vehicle traffic fatalities nationwide, according to WAND-TV. Separately, federal roadside inspection data indicates more than 28,000 commercial truck drivers have been placed out of service for English language proficiency violations since authorities tightened enforcement standards over the past 18 months, per FreightWaves.
Fraud, Bribery and Immigration Enforcement
Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out a synchronized single-day sweep across 23 states on the same day, targeting more than 200 commercial driver training schools and issuing over 80 notices of inspection tied to suspected identity fraud, bribery and shell companies, as detailed by FreightWaves. Investigators are examining whether DMV employees and driving school operators accepted bribes to bypass CDL requirements and enable unauthorized employment, the outlet reports.
Rather than focusing solely on individual noncompliant drivers caught during roadside stops, the multi-agency strategy uniting USDOT, DHS and DOJ targets the institutional supply chain of commercial driver licensing — third-party testing centers, training schools, and state-level DMV oversight, per the Justice Department's announcement. Officials have drawn a distinction between core highway safety regulations, such as facility standards and English proficiency, and broader immigration enforcement, though both threads run through the same investigation.
A Regulatory Loophole Years in the Making
The vulnerabilities exploited by so-called CDL mills trace back to February 2022, when FMCSA regulations first required training providers to register in a federal database but allowed schools to self-certify their curriculum and facilities without prior verification. As The Auto Wire explains, that honor-system approach let noncompliant training mills proliferate for years until nationwide physical audits finally began exposing widespread noncompliance this year.
Sunday's announcement is not the federal government's first swing at the problem. USDOT issued proposed removal notices for more than 550 CDL training schools across all 50 states in February, after 300 federal investigators conducted over 1,400 site audits targeting schools that used unqualified instructors, fake addresses and improper vehicle equipment — a phase Hoodline covered at the time.
Advocacy Groups and Legislative Push
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association issued a statement endorsing the joint task force enforcement and calling on Congress to pass Dalilah's Law, which would enforce English proficiency standards and permanently shut down CDL mills, according to FreightWaves. The bill is named after Dalilah Coleman, a child critically injured in a 2024 crash involving an unvetted commercial driver, her father spoke alongside federal officials at the Detroit press conference, the outlet reports.
Sunday's federal rollout follows a string of state-level crackdowns earlier this year across Midwest freight corridors, including Indiana's HEA 1200 law, passed in May, which penalizes employers who hire unqualified non-domiciled commercial drivers, and Oklahoma's spring audits of non-domiciled CDL holders. Both actions were part of a broader trend Hoodline has tracked in stories on Oklahoma's non-domiciled license audits and Indiana's new trucker law.
