More than 100 CDL mills across the country were padlocked this week, mid-semester, no refunds, no appeals process to speak of. The “bad actor” schools were discovered thanks to the increased enforcement of the English Language Proficiency rule across the country, proving that measures being implemented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) are stacking on themselves to create safer highways and clean out the fraud that trucking companies and drivers have been complaining about for years.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made the announcement himself, and he did not bury the lede. More than 110 Entry-Level Driver Training providers are done. Finished. Ordered to stop administering curricula, stop using their ranges, stop putting unqualified drivers behind the wheel of 80,000-pound rigs.
The Schools That Got Caught
Here’s how they got caught, and it’s an example of FMCSA connecting the dots and following through. FMCSA pulled roadside inspection records for drivers cited on English Language Proficiency violations, then cross-referenced those drivers against the Training Provider Registry to find out who certified them.
Some of what inspectors found reads like a bad joke. One provider claimed its classroom was inside a school bus parked behind a trailer. Others had no documented assessments, or instructors running behind-the-wheel training without the license to do it. That follows a July investigation of 400 more providers that produced 160 additional removal notices, a serious chunk of the training pipeline condemned in a few months.
Crossroads of America
The feds aren’t stopping at school closures. USDOT, the Department of Justice, and Homeland Security Investigations formed the Joint Task Force Crossroads of America to go after the criminal networks behind the fraud, not just the paperwork violations. HSI backed that up with a same-day surge on more than 200 driving schools across 23 states.
States aren’t off the hook either. FMCSA laid out a real enforcement ladder: formal notice to a noncompliant state, 30 days to fix it, then a withholding of federal highway funds starting at 4 percent and climbing to 8 percent a year.
Keep failing, and a state loses its authority to issue CDLs at all.
Good News for People Doing It Right
More than 28,000 drivers have been placed out of service for ELP violations since June 2025. Not a typo, not a small number. Every one came out of a system that legitimate training providers and legitimate drivers have to compete against every day.
That means safer roads. It means less competition from fraudulent companies and untrained drivers who break the rules to get an advantage.
It means that if you’re a truck driver or a trucking company, you better be doing things the right way and following safety guidelines and rules.
Doing It Right In Alabama
An earlier federal probe into 75 suspect CDL schools this July turned up no public indication that an Alabama provider was among them, according to Yellowhammer News. Federal officials haven’t released the names or states involved in this recent sweep of shutdowns, but there is no indication that any of the schools are from Alabama.
That’s no accident. Alabama passed its own English Language Proficiency Law in the 2025 legislative session, codifying the Federal rule and giving our state’s law enforcement clearer direction and stronger enforcement ability. Alabama’s Motor Carrier Safety Unit issued 548 English-language proficiency violations between January 2025 and this March, and referred more than 555 people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resulting in 221 detentions.
That’s the kind of groundwork that has made Alabama a leader in managing these issues.
