Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that he is cracking down on thousands of truck driving schools giving them a 30-day time period in which to comply with the Trump administration’s rules for truck drivers.

In a press release from the Department of Transportation it was revealed that roughly 3,000 commercial driver’s license training providers that were on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Training Provider Registry have been removed. The press release also added that more than 4,000 CDL training providers have been placed on notice.

“This administration is cracking down on every link in the illegal trucking chain. Under Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, bad actors were able to game the system and let unqualified drivers flood our roadways. Their negligence endangered every family on America’s roadways, and it ends today.”

The Training Provider Registry lists all providers authorized to offer federally required Entry-Level Driver Training for CDL students. This is the first step in FMCSA’s review of the 16,000 training providers listed on the TPR to identify and remove noncompliant providers.

The National Association of Truck Stop Owners reported in October 2024 that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that immigrants comprise about 18 percent of employed drivers.

The number of immigrants entering the trucking industry continues to increase. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that immigrants comprise about 18 percent of employed drivers and the number of foreign-born truck drivers more than doubled to more than 720,000 in 2021 from 315,981 in 2000.

A report by George Mason University’s Institute for Immigration Research found that about 59.8 percent of immigrant truck drivers are from Central America and the Caribbean and 6.5 percent are from South America.

A nationwide crackdown on foreign drivers who have CDLs resulted in roughly 250 drivers in states such as Arizona, Indiana, Texas and California being apprehended with many of the drivers reportedly being in the country illegally.

A Policy and Advocacy Report from October 29, 2025, from the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants described trucking as a job that requires long nights and days away from loved ones.

“It is a hard job that not many willingly sign up for. As a result, the industry has struggled to keep drivers on staff. Assailed by these steep labor shortages, immigrant workers have picked up the slack: 18% of truckers are foreign-born. Like so many other industries, immigrants fill the jobs others do not want.”

Shannon Everett the founder of American Truckers United told Breitbart News about the real problem.

“For the first time in my 25-year career, we finally have an administration that acknowledges the truth: America does not have a truth-driver shortage — we have a [wage-cutting] labor-dumping crisis.”

Everett continued explaining the devastating impact.

“For years, large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers have been fast-tracked into commercial trucking with no vetting, inadequate training, and no requirement to pay prevailing wages. The result has been devastating: collapsing wages and working conditions for American truckers, a historic surge in fatal truck crashes, and a serious national-security vulnerability. This administration’s focus on enforcement and fair labor standards is long overdue and welcomed by those of us who have watched our industry be undermined.”

The removal of 3,000 schools from the registry represents a massive cleanup of an industry that had been compromised by fraudulent operators. These CDL mills were churning out drivers with minimal training who endangered everyone on the road.

The 4,000 additional schools now on notice have 30 days to prove they meet federal standards or face removal. This represents nearly half of all training providers on the registry showing how widespread the problem became under the Biden administration.

The doubling of foreign-born truck drivers from 2000 to 2021 coincided with stagnant wages and declining working conditions for American truckers. The industry used immigration to avoid paying competitive wages to attract American workers.

The claim that immigrants fill jobs others do not want ignores the reality that Americans would take these jobs if wages and conditions were better. Trucking used to be a solid middle-class career before the labor dumping began.

The 250 illegal alien drivers apprehended in multiple states shows the scope of the problem. These individuals were operating commercial vehicles on American highways with fake credentials obtained from fraudulent schools.

The national security vulnerability Everett mentioned cannot be overstated. Allowing unvetted foreign nationals to drive trucks across the country creates obvious risks that the Biden administration ignored.