A coalition of 21 Democrat State and the District of Columbia are taking the Trump administration to court as the federal government intensifies its crackdown on improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses, non-domiciled CDL holders and truck drivers unable to demonstrate the English proficiency required under federal law.
The lawsuit does not directly challenge the federal English-language rule or requirement.
Instead, the states are attempting to block the federal government from obtaining certain information from the Commercial Driver’s License Information System, or CDLIS, as federal authorities investigate whether commercial licenses were properly issued and whether drivers remain legally qualified to hold them.
The states argue that the federal government is seeking sensitive personal information and exceeding its authority.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sees the lawsuit very differently.
“Every administration since 1988 has had access to this basic database,” Duffy said while criticizing the states’ legal action.
Duffy said the administration would “fight this lawsuit tooth and nail to prevent more senseless crashes by unqualified drivers.”
The lawsuit comes in the middle of a much broader federal effort to tighten commercial-driver licensing and qualification standards across the country.
And the numbers emerging from that effort are becoming difficult to ignore.
MORE THAN 26,000 DRIVERS REMOVED OVER ENGLISH PROFICIENCY
Federal officials say more than 26,000 commercial drivers have been placed out of service since stricter enforcement of the English Language Proficiency requirement resumed.
The requirement itself is not new.
Under 49 CFR §391.11(b)(2), an interstate commercial driver must be able to read and speak English sufficiently to communicate with the public, understand highway traffic signs and signals, respond to official inquiries and make required entries on reports and records.
The regulation existed long before the current administration.
What changed was enforcement.
In 2016, during the Obama administration, federal inspectors were directed not to place commercial drivers out of service solely for failing the English-language requirement.
The regulation remained on the books, but one of its most serious enforcement consequences was effectively removed.
That changed in 2025.
Beginning June 25, 2025, English Language Proficiency violations were once again included in the commercial-vehicle out-of-service criteria.
The Trump administration has since moved to make that enforcement policy more permanent.
The English requirement wasn’t invented by Donald Trump or Sean Duffy. The federal government is enforcing a qualification that commercial drivers were already required to meet.
Duffy has made the administration’s position clear.
“Federal law is clear, drivers who can’t read or speak English—or understand road signs—are unqualified to operate 80,000-pound big rigs on America’s highways,” Duffy said while announcing additional action on English proficiency.
FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs put the safety argument even more plainly, pointing to signs such as “Steep Grade,” “Runaway Truck Ramp” and “Do Not Enter” as examples of information commercial drivers must be capable of understanding.
MORE THAN 30,000 LICENSES REVOKED
English proficiency is only one part of the federal crackdown.
The Department of Transportation says more than 30,000 improperly issued commercial licenses have also been revoked as federal authorities examine how states issued non-domiciled CDLs to foreign-domiciled drivers.
Those license revocations and the 26,000 English-proficiency out-of-service actions are separate numbers.
A driver who fails an English assessment is not automatically an illegal immigrant.
Likewise, a license being improperly issued does not automatically mean the driver could not speak English or was unsafe behind the wheel.
But together, the numbers raise a much larger question:
How many drivers entered the commercial transportation system without every required qualification being properly checked?
FMCSA’s nationwide review found what the agency described as widespread regulatory noncompliance by state licensing agencies in their handling of some non-domiciled commercial licenses.
Federal regulators found cases in which states failed to properly match CDL expiration dates to immigration documents, improperly relied on employment-authorization documents or otherwise failed to follow federal licensing requirements.
That matters because a commercial license issued by one state allows a driver to operate throughout the country.
A licensing failure in one state does not stay in that state.
OPERATION HIGHWAY SHIELD ADDS TO THE CONCERNS
Recent enforcement operations have provided another glimpse into the problem.
During Operation Highway Shield, federal authorities conducted 3,487 enforcement stops.
Authorities reported placing 766 drivers or vehicles out of service.
They also reported detaining 51 people for immigration violations, including 21 drivers who held non-domiciled CDLs issued by California or New York.
Inspectors issued 36 English Language Proficiency violations during the operation.
Authorities also reported criminal arrests and the recovery of nearly $1 million in stolen cargo.
Those numbers do not establish that immigrant truck drivers as a group are dangerous.
They do establish something else:
The commercial-driver screening and enforcement system is finding people operating trucks who should not have been operating them under the circumstances discovered by inspectors.
And that deserves attention.
IMMIGRATION COMPLIANCE AND ROAD SAFETY ARE NOT THE SAME THING
There is a distinction that needs to be made clearly.
Violating immigration law does not prove that a person will violate traffic laws.
Nationality does not determine driving ability.
There are foreign-born commercial drivers who are experienced, professional and fully compliant with American law, just as there are American-born drivers who are reckless, poorly trained or dangerous.
But commercial trucking is a heavily regulated profession built around verification.
Before someone is trusted with an 80,000-pound commercial vehicle, regulators are supposed to verify that the person is legally eligible for the license, medically qualified, properly tested and otherwise compliant with federal requirements.
When investigators discover that someone’s immigration authorization had expired, that a CDL remained valid beyond the driver’s authorized period of presence or that a state failed to properly verify eligibility, that does not prove the person was a dangerous driver.
It does, however, create a legitimate reason to question whether the rest of the qualification process was handled correctly.
If one required safeguard failed, regulators have every reason to examine the others.
That is not an assumption about immigrants.
It is basic regulatory oversight.
WHY ENGLISH PROFICIENCY IS A SAFETY MATTER
Arguments that English-language enforcement is discriminatory overlook what commercial drivers actually encounter on American highways.
A professional driver may have seconds to understand a warning.
RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP
LOW CLEARANCE
DO NOT ENTER
ROAD CLOSED
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS DETOUR
Those are not conversational conveniences.
They are safety instructions.
A driver descending a mountain grade cannot pull out a phone, open a translation application and attempt to determine what “Runaway Truck Ramp” means after the brakes begin failing.
A driver approaching a low bridge needs to understand the warning before striking the structure.
A tanker driver redirected because of a hazardous-material incident needs to understand the instructions being given.
The same applies when communicating with police officers, DOT inspectors, emergency personnel and weigh-station officials.
Commercial trucking regularly requires drivers to understand directions quickly and accurately.
English proficiency in trucking isn’t about eliminating accents or demanding perfect grammar. It is about ensuring a driver can understand the safety environment in which that driver is operating.
That is a job qualification.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS A STRONG CASE FOR ENFORCEMENT
It would be irresponsible to declare that the states are guaranteed to lose their lawsuit.
Courts will have to determine whether the federal government can lawfully obtain the specific CDL information it is demanding and whether the states have valid privacy or statutory arguments.
But the states face a difficult broader argument when it comes to federal oversight of commercial licensing.
Commercial driver’s licenses operate within a national system.
A California CDL does not stop working at the Nevada border.
A New York CDL does not become invalid when the truck enters Pennsylvania.
Congress has given the federal government substantial authority to establish minimum commercial-driver qualifications and standards states must follow.
Federal law specifically allows states to issue non-domiciled commercial licenses only in accordance with requirements established by federal regulators.
FMCSA’s 2026 final rule further tightened those requirements, limiting eligibility for many non-domiciled CDLs and requiring stronger verification of qualifying immigration status.
The agency also concluded that states had demonstrated widespread problems complying with previous requirements.
That gives the federal government a significant argument:
If a state issues a commercial license recognized throughout the United States, federal regulators have a legitimate interest in ensuring that the license was issued according to federal standards.
The states may ultimately succeed on some portions of their data-privacy challenge.
That would not erase the federal government’s authority to establish commercial-driver qualifications.
And it would not erase the English-language requirement.
ENFORCING A SAFETY STANDARD IS NOT THE SAME AS TARGETING A NATIONALITY
The debate has increasingly been framed as an immigration or discrimination issue.
That framing misses the point.
The standard should not depend on where somebody was born.
A driver from India should meet it.
A driver from Mexico should meet it.
A driver from Ukraine should meet it.
A driver born in the United States should meet every qualification that applies to that driver as well.
Equal treatment means holding everyone to the same safety standard—not eliminating the standard because some groups may have more difficulty meeting it.
English proficiency has a direct relationship to the work being performed.
Truck drivers operate on roads where regulatory signs are written in English.
They communicate with American enforcement officers.
They respond to emergency personnel.
They complete federally required records.
They must understand instructions that sometimes involve immediate threats to life.
That makes English comprehension relevant to the job.
A CDL HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING
At the center of this debate is something much bigger than politics or immigration.
It is the credibility of the commercial driver’s license itself.
When a state hands someone a CDL, that license tells everyone else on the highway that government officials have determined the person meets the minimum qualifications necessary to operate a commercial vehicle.
Drivers in passenger cars have no way to personally verify that.
They trust the licensing system.
When federal audits reveal improperly issued licenses, when tens of thousands of drivers fail English-proficiency assessments and when enforcement operations uncover drivers who do not meet other legal requirements, the appropriate response is not to weaken oversight.
It is to find out why those safeguards failed.
Foreign-born does not mean unsafe. American-born does not mean safe.
What should matter is whether the person behind the wheel is qualified.
Can the driver operate the equipment?
Can the driver understand the signs?
Can the driver communicate with police and emergency personnel?
Was the license legally issued?
Were the driver’s qualifications actually verified?
Those are reasonable questions when the vehicle involved can weigh 80,000 pounds and travel at interstate speeds beside families every day.
English proficiency is not an immigration test.
It is one part of determining whether someone is qualified to safely operate a commercial vehicle on American roads.
And that standard should apply to everyone.
