Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving programs listed by the government nationwide may be forced to close if they lose students after a federal Department of Transportation review found the programs may not meet minimum requirements.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said Monday it plans to revoke the accreditation of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply with training requirements within the next 30 days. Targeted schools must notify students that their credentials are in jeopardy. A further 4,500 schools have been warned they may face similar action.
Schools that lose accreditation will no longer be able to issue certificates proving that drivers completed the training required to obtain a license, so students may abandon these schools. It’s unclear how many of those schools have been actively teaching students.
Separately, the Department of Homeland Security is conducting an audit of California immigrant-owned trucking companies to verify the identities of their drivers and their eligibility to hold commercial driver’s licenses.
The crackdown on trucking schools and companies is the government’s latest move to ensure truck drivers are qualified and eligible to hold commercial licenses. The incident began after a truck driver in Florida made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said did not have the right to enter the United States. killed three people.
Duffy said the action was intended to curb “illegal and reckless practices that use poorly trained drivers to operate semi-trucks and school buses.”
Tamiflu threatens to withdraw federal funds california and pennsylvania On this issue, he proposed significant new restrictions Immigrants can get commercial driver’s licenses, but courts have put the new rules on hold. On Monday, he threatened to withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota if it doesn’t address flaws in its commercial driver’s license program and revoke any licenses that should never have been issued because they were valid beyond a driver’s work permit or because the state never verified a driver’s immigration status.
So far, every state Duffy has threatened has been Democratic, but he said the department is auditing a number of others, including Texas and South Dakota.
“We take road safety seriously and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety has worked hard to ensure we comply with federal law,” said Claire Lancaster, a spokesperson for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Trucking school falls short of standards
It’s unclear how the action against these trucking schools will affect the existing driver shortage, but Andrew Polyakov, executive director of the largest trucking school association, said many of the decertified schools are shady “CDL mills” that advertise their ability to train drivers in just a few days.
In established training schools, students usually spend at least a month on courses in the cab and classroom.
He said the schools in question were effectively just “cheating people out of their money” without teaching them the skills they needed to find employment or pass their exams.
“Trucking is an excellent career. People who are unfamiliar with the industry may see someone charging $1,000 to $2,000 for a long weekend or quick training. They may think that’s ideal, but it’s not,” Polyakov said. He is director of the Commercial Vehicle Training Association, which includes 100 schools and 400 training locations across the country. None of these schools have been decertified.
The Department for Transport said the 3,000 schools it was taking action against had failed to meet training standards and did not keep accurate and complete records. The schools have also been accused of falsifying or manipulating training data.
Some of them were inactive before this action.
Owner Yogi Sanwal said his company closed its truck driving school in 2022. The company closed its truck driving school after making some changes to comply with federal certification requirements, which subsequently triggered county requirements for upgrades, such as replacing sand and gravel with asphalt. The company did not have enough $150,000 to complete the work and closed the school. In the four to five years since the school opened, it has trained about 500 truck drivers, Sanwar said.
Freight industry groups have commended the effort To tighten licensing standards and ensure drivers can meet basic English proficiency requirements that the Trump administration began implementing this summer. But groups representing immigrant truckers say they believe many qualified drivers and companies are being targeted simply because of their citizenship status.
“Bad actors who exploit loopholes in our regulatory system are putting everyone at risk. This is unacceptable,” said Paul J. Enos, CEO of the Nevada Trucking Associations. “We are focused on solutions and determined to make them happen.”
Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the industry has long warned that problems could arise if trucking schools were allowed to self-certify.
“When training standards are weak, or in some cases completely non-existent, drivers are left unprepared and everyone on the road pays the price,” Spencer said.
Immigrant drivers say they are unfairly targeted
Sikh truck driver arrested Caught in the crossfire and faced harassment. Because driver in Florida crash Another fatal car accident in California This fall, both are Sikhs. The North American Punjab Teamsters Association estimates that the Sikh workforce makes up about 40 percent of truck drivers on the West Coast and about 20 percent of truck drivers nationwide. Advocacy groups estimate there are about 150,000 Sikh truck drivers working in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about verifying the truckers’ immigration status, but United Sikh Advocacy Group said it heard directly from owners of Punjabi companies about these aggressive audits of immigration records.
“Sikh and immigrant truck drivers are being treated like criminal suspects while keeping America’s freight moving,” United Sikhs said. “When federal agencies view legal, licensed drivers as a risk, it does not improve safety — but instead promotes xenophobia, harassment, and even violence on the road. Any policy based on fear rather than fact jeopardizes families, civil rights, and the nation’s supply chain.”
California has decided to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses amid concerns from federal officials that the licenses were issued to immigrants improperly or remained valid long after a driver’s work permit had expired.
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Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this story.