Following a rash of highly publicized incidents in 2025, the trucking industry is faced with numerous issues regarding non-citizen drivers.
One of those issues, which has been discussed at length with no “one-size-fits-all” solution, is enforcing the English language proficiency (ELP) requirement among truck drivers. Another important issue regards regulations and guidelines for the issuance of CDLs to non-domiciled drivers.
In a recent article on TheTrucker.com, Brad Klepper, president of Interstate Trucker and Driver’s Legal Plan, summed up the situation now faced by motor carriers:
“In the span of just six months, the trucking industry has been hit with executive orders, ‘interim final rules,’ emergency court stays and conflicting guidance regarding who’s legally allowed to sit behind the wheel of a Class 8 truck,” he wrote.
“The confusion is understandable,” he continued. “We’re currently navigating two distinct but overlapping storms — a crackdown on English language proficiency and a separate, volatile attempt to restrict non-domiciled CDLs.”
USDOT actions
In September 2025, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an emergency action to drastically restrict the list of non-residents who are eligible to earn a non-domiciled commercial learner’s permit (CLP) and, ultimately, a CDL.
“What our team has discovered should disturb and anger every American,” Duffy said. “Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers — often times illegally. This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it.
“(These) actions will prevent unsafe foreign drivers from renewing their license and hold states accountable to immediately invalidate improperly issued licenses,” he continued.
An audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) uncovered systemic non-compliance with regulations regarding non-domiciled drivers. According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), weak oversight, insufficient training and programming errors resulted in a large number of non-domiciled CDLs being issued to drivers who were ineligible, as well as licenses that remained valid long after the drivers’ lawful presence in the U.S. expired.
“In California alone, more than 25% of non-domiciled CDLs reviewed were improperly issued,” USDOT said.
“This opens the door to thousands of unsafe drivers on the road, including some with licenses extending as many as four years beyond the expiration date of their lawful presence documentation,” the statement continued. “In one shocking case, California gave a driver from Brazil a CDL with endorsements to drive a passenger bus and a school bus that was valid for months after his legal presence expired.”
California is not the only state being targeted by the federal government.
According to an Associated Press report on November 20, 2025, the Trump administration threatened to withhold nearly $75 million in funding if Pennsylvania does not immediately revoke what the administration claims are illegally issued CDLs to immigrants.
Roadblocks to enforcement
The solution? Stop issuing CDLs to non-domiciled drivers who don’t meet the requirements.
Seems simple, huh?
But not so fast: Less than a month after the FMCSA’s rule was put in place, a lawsuit was filed asking for a petition of review on the rule. Participants in the lawsuit include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the AFL-CIO (AFSCME); the American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Jorge Rivera Lujan; and Aleksei Semenovskii.
On October 20, 2025, certificates of service regarding the suit were sent to Greg Zerzan, general counsel for the USDOT; Jesse Elison, office of the chief counsel for the FMCSA; and Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General.
On November 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals paused enforcement of the rule. At the time of this writing, the rule remains in limbo, creating even more confusion about guidelines and enforcement.
Shifts in training, policies
David Heller, senior vice president of safety and government affairs for the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), shared his thoughts in a recent conversation with Truckload Authority.
“I think it is important to say that as an industry, we can never advocate for non-compliance of the existing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, especially when it comes to our drivers,” Heller said. “What we are seeing on the non-domiciled CDL front — and even with CDL schools — are increased enforcement of those regulations in an effort to ensure compliance with rules that have already been vetted, in some cases — like the ELP standards — for decades.
“Increasing enforcement of these rules, including the Entry Level Driver Training regulations, shows a determination by the administration to weed out the entities in our industry that have shown a high disregard for safety, a principle in which the motor carrier members of TCA strive to uphold,” he concluded.
According to Martin Garsee, executive director of the National Association of Publicly Funded Truck Driving Schools, schools are already seeing the effects and are pivoting to ensure compliance.
At Houston Community College, where Garsee serves as director of transportation training, the driver training program has been forced to drop students because of the non-domicile rule, and many others were banned from the program altogether.
TCA’s Heller says the association stands behind enforcing qualifications for commercial drivers.
“The increased enforcement measures by (the USDOT and FMCSA) are ones that TCA has openly supported and actively lobbied for in an effort to ensure that motor carriers, driver and industry stakeholders adhere to established safety standards that protect not only our industry, but those we share the road with,” Heller said.
“These actions are initiatives that should only be construed as opportunities to enhance the safety, reliability and integrity of our nation’s transportation system,” he said.
The sparring both on political fronts and in the courts have dominated the landscape in the last half of 2025. It appears 2026 will be no different.
This story originally appeared in the January/February 2026 edition of Truckload Authority, the official publication of the Truckload Carriers Association.
Bruce Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has lived in three states including Arkansas, Missouri and Georgia. During his nearly 20-year career, Bruce has served as managing editor and sports editor for numerous publications. He and his wife, Dana, who is also a journalist, are based in Carrollton, Georgia.
