President Trump’s administration is moving to shut down 270 commercial driving schools after investigators identified alleged licensing abuses and failures in basic driver training.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the action alongside Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Detroit on Monday.
Duffy identified 110 as major offenders in a crackdown involving licenses granted to illegal immigrants. Another 160 allegedly lacked adequate space for driving tests or employed instructors without the required licenses.
Those are basic qualifications for a school preparing people to operate heavy commercial vehicles on public roads.
Americans have a right to feel safe on the roads their taxes pay for. 🇺🇸
The partnership among @VP Vance’s Task Force, @USDOT, and @DHSgov is critical to fighting trucking fraud and keeping American families safe. https://t.co/irfJcCYa7f
— White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (@WHFraudTF) August 31, 2026
Fox Business detailed the announcement from Detroit:
Duffy described the 110 schools as the “greatest offenders” in the licensing crackdown. He separately identified the other 160 over testing-space and instructor deficiencies, bringing the combined total to 270.
Speaking at the Monday news conference in Detroit with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Duffy also alleged that tens of thousands of improperly issued licenses went out during the Biden administration. He said some immigrants who received commercial licenses could not speak English, describing the enforcement push as a response to problems that began under the previous administration.
The announcement concerns commercial driver training, the system that prepares truck and bus operators. The two groups of schools face different allegations; the reported total does not establish that every school committed the same violation.
Alongside our partners at @USDOT and @TheJusticeDept, we’ve SHUT DOWN 270 fraudulent driving schools that were handing out licenses to illegal alien truckers.
We will continue getting illegal aliens OFF our roads and OUT of our country.https://t.co/M78YCqXx68
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) August 31, 2026
And the investigation was already underway well before Monday’s announcement.
In its July 16 announcement, the Department of Transportation explained how federal transportation and homeland security investigators were joining forces:
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had identified about 75 entry-level driver training schools suspected of fraud. The suspected conduct included improper certifications, falsified training records and failures to provide the training required for people seeking commercial driver’s licenses.
Homeland Security Investigations was being brought into the school investigations. That expanded an effort already reaching beyond individual drivers to the businesses responsible for preparing them for the road.
Sean Duffy: the Trump admin just shut down 270 fraudulent truck driving schools. 110 of them account for 5,000 English proficiency violations alone. One school's classroom was a bus in a backyard. pic.twitter.com/ycsN9uf2EA
— Sean Hannity 🇺🇸 (@seanhannity) August 31, 2026
At that point, Duffy said enforcement had taken more than 24,000 drivers out of service for English-language deficiencies and prompted states to cancel more than 28,000 licenses improperly issued to foreign drivers. Those were the department’s July figures, separate from Monday’s 270-school announcement.
For a driver who earns a license through legitimate training, the requirements mean time, expense and demonstrated competence. A school that certifies training it never delivered would undermine that entire process.
Earlier inspections also found problems that had little to do with paperwork.
The Department of Transportation released the results of a separate nationwide enforcement sweep on February 18:
The sweep mobilized more than 300 investigators across all 50 states, with 1,426 on-site checks carried out over five days. The department’s detailed tally listed 448 notices proposing removal from the federal Training Provider Registry, while another 109 providers voluntarily withdrew after learning investigators were coming.
Investigators found instructors without the licenses or permits needed for the vehicles they were teaching students to drive. Other schools used the wrong vehicles for their courses, failed to properly assess students or acknowledged falling short of state requirements.
The department also identified fake addresses and inadequate hazardous-materials training. One school removed over safety violations had previously trained school bus drivers.
Another 97 providers remained under investigation at the time.
That February tally describes an earlier action. Proposed removals, voluntary withdrawals and Monday’s announced shutdowns are different categories, and adding them together would risk counting the same providers more than once.
Monday’s announcement goes beyond identifying schools for investigation: Duffy said the administration is shutting them down. The practical question now is whether enforcement closes the gaps that allowed deficient training and questionable certifications to reach the licensing system in the first place.
Families sharing the road with commercial trucks and buses depend on that system doing its job before a driver gets behind the wheel.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
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