More than 7,000 truck drivers have been placed out of service this year for failing mandatory English proficiency tests, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. The crackdown comes in the wake of road accidents involving Indian truckers. The move has hit Indian and Indian-origin truck drivers in the US the hardest. Lakhs of Sikhs work in the US trucking industry, of whom 90% are drivers.
Duffy, in a social media post, noted that, as of October 2025, 7,248 drivers have been removed from service, referencing real-time violation data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
The number marks a significant rise from the 1,500 drivers reported in July, highlighting intensified roadside enforcement following the rule’s reinstatement earlier this summer.
Around 130,000 to 150,000 truck drivers working in the US are from Punjab and Haryana, according to the North American Punjabi Truckers Association. Thousands of them have been hit by the new regulations, reported The New Indian Express, quoting the truckers’ association.
A Trump executive order earlier overturned a 2016 Obama-era memo that had barred inspectors from sidelining drivers solely over language.
“Commercial truck drivers must speak and understand English to operate—or they will be taken out of service,” the Transportation Secretary said.
According to FMCSA’s national inspection database, at least 5,006 English language-related out-of-service violations were recorded through October — a number that has continued to rise in recent months as more states ramp up enforcement, FreightWaves, a price reporting agency, reported.
Under the new rule, 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2), all holders of a Commercial Driver’s Licence must have sufficient English skills to communicate with the public, interpret signs, interact with authorities, and keep accurate records.
President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order and subsequent Transportation Department directives mandate that drivers who fail English language tests be immediately removed from service starting June 25, 2025.
HIGHWAY CRASHES INVOLVING INDIAN TRUCKERS SEEN UPTICK IN US
The crackdown followed a series of high-profile crashes, including a deadly October pileup on a California highway in which an Indian driver was accused of killing three Americans.
Additionally, a crash on the Florida Turnpike resulted in the deaths of three people after a tractor-trailer driven by an illegal immigrant from India made a dangerous U-turn.
In the Florida crash, the driver who is charged with killing three people had failed a commercial driver’s license repeatedly, ABC News reported. Despite this, he reportedly secured a California Commercial Driver’s License (CDL).
Texas has the largest total issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) — commercial driver’s licenses held by foreign drivers legally operating in the US, according to FreightWaves.
CRITICS CLAIM NEW POLICY PENALISES BILINGUAL TRUCKERS
Although federal officials contend the policy enhances safety, industry groups and carriers along the southern border have criticised the rule, claiming it unfairly affects bilingual and Spanish-speaking drivers.
“We have drivers who’ve been safely operating for years, but now they’re being put out of service because they can’t respond in English fast enough during a roadside stop,” Adalberto Campero, CEO of Pharr, Texas-based Unimex, told FreightWaves in an interview.
“It’s not a safety issue — it’s a communication style issue. These drivers know the regulations, the routes, and the customers, but now they’re sidelined over language perception,” he added.
Last month, the Trump Administration issued a new Interim Final Rule (IFR) that could strip many different classes of immigrants from obtaining or holding non-domiciled Commercial Drivers’ Licenses (CDLs), The Sikh Coalition, a Sikh advocacy group, said.
The advocacy group slammed the Trump administration, saying IFR was introduced to target 194,000 truck drivers.
“This change is not being made on the basis of drivers’ English language proficiency (ELP) or other qualifications: instead, it is simply an argument that non-domiciled CDL holders are inherently dangerous to the public, and thus an effort to remove approximately 194,000 of them from the workforce,” it said in a statement.
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