DOT Emergency Order Hits 11 California Trucking Schools After Schools Certified Drivers Who Couldn’t Speak English

The Department of Transportation confirmed Monday that it used an emergency order to shut down more than 110 trucker schools nationwide for allegedly fraudulently certifying drivers who later failed English-language proficiency tests—and California landed near the top of the list. 

Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin reported the state-by-state breakdown provided by DOT: California had 11 schools pulled from the federal Training Provider Registry. Arizona had two. Texas and Pennsylvania each had 13. Florida had 10. Utah had nine. Ohio had seven. Another 23 schools were online-only with no physical location; Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered a review of those operations as well. DOT did not publish a complete roster of the 110 schools. 

NEW: DOT confirms to @FoxNews that of the 100+ trucker schools they shut down today via emergency order for allegedly fraudulently certifying non-citizens to obtain CDLs, CA, TX, PA, & FL are the states with the most schools impacted.

Full breakdown by state, per DOT:

Arizona -…

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) August 31, 2026

Officials did name one California provider during the announcement: Platinum Plus Truck Driving School in Fresno. FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said the school certified 36 drivers who were later cited for English-language proficiency violations. One of those trainees was involved in a fatal crash in Oklahoma. Barrs also described other California operations that treated the back of an open semi-trailer as a “classroom” and cases in which the primary instructor was not even in the country. 

The 110 schools were not random. Officials said every one of them had passed at least 10 drivers who were later pulled over and cited for failing the long-standing federal English proficiency requirement. Collectively those schools accounted for more than 5,000 such violations. 

Federal rules requiring commercial drivers to understand and communicate in English have been on the books for decades. Duffy was blunt: “You have to speak English to operate a commercial motor vehicle. I didn’t create that rule. President Trump didn’t create that rule.” 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pointed the finger at sanctuary policies, saying illegal aliens have been handed CDLs in states that treat the requirement as optional. The announcement was part of a broader interagency push involving DOT, DHS, the Justice Department, and the White House Fraud Task Force. 

HSI conducted a same-day sweep at more than 200 driving schools across 23 states. Officials also flagged potential ties to identity-document fraud, unauthorized employment, labor exploitation, money laundering, cartel activity, and, in some cases, drug and human smuggling networks. 

This is not California’s first collision with federal CDL enforcement. DOT has already revoked tens of thousands of improperly issued licenses, withheld transportation funding from the state, and documented that a significant share of non-domiciled CDLs issued in California violated federal standards. 

Gavin Newsom’s administration has spent years treating commercial licensing as an extension of its sanctuary state policy rather than a safety program. The result has been dangerous and deadly.

In October 2025, the California Globe reported:

Another horrid wreck happened, this time in Southern California on Wednesday. Jashanpreet Singh of Yuba City, a 21 year old illegal alien who entered the U.S. illegally but was released by Biden admin in 2022, is a semi-truck driver who Wednesday plowed his truck into several vehicles including a van and the back of a semi-truck that left three deceased and four injured.

He never hit his brakes, or maneuvered out of the way.

Jashanpreet Singh had a commercial drivers license issued by California.

DOT is also proposing to remove another 160-plus schools after investigators inspected 400 providers and found 40% failed basic requirements—unqualified instructors, no real range space, trainees left unmonitored. Those schools will have a chance to respond. The 110 already under the emergency order must stop training immediately.

Californians who share the road with 80,000-pound trucks have a right to expect the person behind the wheel can read a sign, understand a dispatcher, and talk to a trooper. Eleven schools in this state apparently decided that was optional. The federal government just decided it isn’t.