Five months after ICE and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol launched an effort to remove illegal truckers from the state’s turnpikes and interstates, the federal government recently announced a new requirement that all truckers and bus drivers will have to take their commercial driver’s license tests in English.
It was in September 2025 when ICE and state troopers busted 130 drivers at the Interstate 40 Port of Entry in Sayre in western Oklahoma. Some were illegal aliens who received driver’s licenses from such states as California or New York. Some could either speak no English or struggled with the language.
Federal push for English CDL testing
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the latest effort two weeks ago to ensure that drivers meet the federal requirements to understand English well enough to read road signs and communicate with law enforcement officers. Florida already started administering its tests in English.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy acknowledged a wrong-way driving incident that happened recently in Missouri, saying, “DISTURBING: We have learned that a truck driver with a Minnesota CDL who couldn’t read basic road signs spent MILES driving the wrong way in an 80 TON truck! Thanks to Missouri law enforcement, this dangerous trucker is now out of service.”
Secretary Duffy added that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is investigating the alleged carrier, Cargo Transportation LLC.
Licensing enforcement and safety concerns
Currently, many states allow drivers to take their license tests in other languages even though they are required to demonstrate English proficiency. California offered tests in 20 other languages. Duffy said that a number of states have hired other companies to administer commercial driver’s license tests, and those companies aren’t enforcing the standards that drivers are supposed to meet to demonstrate their driving and English skills.
These latest enforcement efforts come just days after the U.S. Department of Transportation said 557 driving schools should close because they failed to meet basic safety standards. The department has been aggressively going after states that handed out commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants who shouldn’t have qualified for them ever since a fatal crash in August
National spotlight on trucking safety
President Donald Trump followed the English crackdown during his State of the Union address Tuesday night where he introduced and honored a 5-year old girl named Dalilah from California. She was severely injured during a crash involving a semi-truck that was driven by an undocumented immigrant. The trucker slammed into the rear of a car carrying the little girl who was left severely impaired. Trump called on Congress to pass what he labeled the Dalilah Law which would bar any state from issuing commercial driver licenses to undocumented people.
Oklahoma enforcement actions continue
Oklahoma supported ICE in the trucker crackdown and took part in at least two more efforts at a port of entry in the southern part of the state and still another on Interstate 40 in eastern Oklahoma. Nearly three dozen truckers were taken into custody in the second effort. The 34 drivers were in the country illegally and held commercial driver licenses from various states.
“To lawfully operate a commercial motor vehicle in Oklahoma, you must be here legally and you must be able to understand English. These are common-sense standards that we will continue to enforce,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a Nov. 4 statement.
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