U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a press conference to discuss the impact of the government shutdown on air safety workers and travel at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 24, 2025.
Rachel Wisniewski | Reuters
The Trump administration said Wednesday that it has pulled nearly 10,000 commercial truck drivers off U.S. roadways for failing to speak English sufficiently.
The boast comes as trucking companies have raised alarms about drivers being targeted by President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
“We’ve now knocked 9,500 truck drivers out of service for failing to speak our national language — ENGLISH!” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in an X post.
“This administration will always put you and your family’s safety first,” Duffy said.
Duffy was responding to a report by Bloomberg that detailed fallout in the trucking industry from a new language policy and other rules.
The industry – which was already grappling with declining freight volumes and rising overheads – is bracing for a significant drop in the supply of drivers because of the federal government’s enforcement actions, Bloomberg reported.
Trump signed an executive order in early March designating English as the country’s official language.
In April, the president signed another order directing Duffy to ensure that commercial truck drivers who fail to meet English proficiency requirements are taken out of service.
That order rescinded an Obama-era policy, which the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says directed personnel to issue citations to commercial drivers who violate English standards, but not remove them from service.
The strengthened enforcement policy went into effect in late June.
Texas and Wyoming have seen the largest number of drivers out of the more than 9,500 who have been pulled from the road, Bloomberg reported.
The Trump administration has drawn links between the surge in immigration during the administration of former President Joe Biden and road safety concerns.
Duffy, in late June, announced a nationwide audit of states’ practices regarding issuing “non-domiciled” commercial driver’s licenses, with a particular focus on the “potential for unqualified individuals obtaining licenses and posing a hazard on our roads.”
“The open borders policies of the last administration allowed millions to flood our country – leading to serious allegations that the trucking licensing system is being exploited,” Duffy said at the time.
The administration has pointed to the criminal case of Harjinder Singh, a commercial truck driver charged in August with causing a deadly crash on a Florida turnpike, as an example of the trucking industry becoming a “lawless frontier.”
The Transportation Department issued emergency rules after the crash, limiting the issuance of commercial licenses to non-U.S. citizens.
In October, Duffy’s department said it would withhold over $40 million from California after finding the state had not complied with the English proficiency standards.
