Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered the emergency shutdown of 270 fraudulent commercial truck driving schools after 239 Americans died on roadways at the hands of drivers who couldn't speak English — a death toll that begs the question of how long Washington knew and did nothing.
The numbers tell the story of a regulatory collapse. Duffy announced Monday that 110 schools received emergency shutdown orders, while another 160 were stripped from the federal Training Provider Registry for violations including zero classroom space, unlicensed instructors, missing testing records, and inadequate space to even put a student behind the wheel. According to Breitbart, those 110 schools alone accounted for 5,000 violations of English proficiency requirements — a federal rule that has been on the books for decades.
"You have to speak English to operate a commercial motor vehicle," Duffy stated. "I didn't create that rule, President Trump didn't create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades." He added that these schools "know the rule and still pass people through their school who can't speak the language."
Duffy laid the blame squarely on the Biden administration, which eliminated "long standing safety rules" and allowed CDL schools to self-certify — letting the industry police itself while unqualified drivers, including illegal aliens, flooded onto American highways.
This latest round follows Duffy's January crackdown, when DOT shut down 7,500 CDL training schools and pulled more than 11,500 non-English-speaking drivers off the road. By December, per HotAir, 3,000 school providers had already been removed from the federal registry. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin joined Duffy in Monday's announcement, signaling a cross-agency push.
But enforcement gaps remain wide. California still refuses to comply with English proficiency standards — the lone holdout among 49 states. And as American Truckers United has documented, red states aren't immune either: the group called out Arkansas Highway Police for ignoring the illegal alien truck driver crisis during a recent DOT enforcement blitz, with ICE and CBP nowhere to be found.
The racket was straightforward: collect tuition, skip the training, rubber-stamp the certification, and push unqualified drivers onto highways shared with American families. The school operators collected. The 239 dead Americans paid.
Twenty-three hundred and thirty-nine preventable deaths accumulated on the Biden administration's watch, under existing federal law. Who at DOT and FMCSA signed off on self-certification, and has anyone been held to account?
