The Trump administration isn’t wasting any time cleaning up the mess left behind by four years of Biden’s open borders chaos.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just dropped the hammer on multiple states that thought they could ignore federal law when it comes to trucking licenses.
And what Duffy’s investigation revealed about a deadly Florida crash will have you questioning how many other unqualified drivers are cruising America’s highways right now.
Duffy’s investigation uncovers a web of state-level failures
Secretary Duffy launched a full Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration investigation into the recent deadly Florida highway crash that claimed three innocent lives by an illegal alien driving a semi.
What his team discovered should make every American’s blood boil.
The driver involved in this preventable tragedy couldn’t even speak English.
When federal investigators gave the driver a basic English proficiency test, he got just 2 out of 12 verbal questions right and could only identify 1 of 4 basic highway signs.¹
This is the person multiple states thought was qualified to operate a 40-ton killing machine on America’s roads.
"If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us," Duffy stated in no uncertain terms.²
But here’s where it gets really infuriating.
Three states violated federal law to put this unqualified driver on the road
Duffy’s investigators didn’t just find one violation – they uncovered a pattern of states thumbing their nose at federal trucking safety requirements.
Washington State issued this driver a regular full-term Commercial Driver’s License back in July 2023.³
There’s just one problem with that.
Asylum seekers and people without legal status aren’t eligible for that type of license under federal law.
Washington knew the rules and issued the license anyway.
California piled on by giving the same driver a limited-term CDL in July 2024, and federal investigators are now looking into whether that license followed any regulations at all.⁴
But New Mexico might have committed the most egregious violation of all.
Their state police pulled this same driver over for speeding just last month and issued him a ticket.⁵
They had him right there.
They could have administered the required English proficiency test that’s been federal law since June 25.
Instead, they let him drive away to kill three people in Florida.
The bigger picture reveals a trucking industry in chaos
Duffy didn’t mince words about what these state failures represent.
"Non-enforcement and radical immigration policies have turned the trucking industry into a lawless frontier, resulting in unqualified foreign drivers improperly acquiring licenses to operate 40-ton vehicles," the Secretary explained.⁶
Think about that for a second.
We’re not talking about someone getting a driver’s license to pick up groceries.
These are commercial vehicles that weigh as much as 20 cars combined, and states are handing out licenses to people who can’t read road signs in English.
The Trump administration saw this disaster coming from miles away.
That’s why Duffy signed new guidance back in May requiring English proficiency enforcement for truckers.⁷
But some states apparently thought they could keep playing games with public safety.
New Mexico still hasn’t started enforcing English proficiency requirements even though they’ve been federal law for two months.⁸
What this means for American road safety
Here’s what’s really happening behind the scenes.
Biden’s four years of open borders policies didn’t just create chaos at the southern border.
They created a pipeline for unqualified foreign nationals to get commercial driving licenses through states that were more interested in virtue signaling than following federal safety requirements.
The result? American families are paying the price with their lives.
This Florida crash wasn’t some freak accident.
It was the entirely predictable outcome of states deciding that federal trucking safety laws were optional suggestions.
Duffy’s investigation is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Secretary also launched a nationwide audit of how states issue non-domiciled CDLs, and you can bet they’re finding violations everywhere they look.⁹
The good news is that the Trump administration is taking this seriously.
Unlike the Biden years when federal agencies looked the other way while states ignored immigration and safety laws, Duffy is using "every tool at our disposal to hold these states and bad actors accountable."¹⁰
Three families in Florida are grieving tonight because Washington State, California, and New Mexico thought they knew better than federal safety experts.
Those states are about to learn the hard way that the Trump administration won’t tolerate this kind of reckless endangerment of American lives.
This is exactly the kind of lawless behavior that the Democrat Party enabled for four years under Biden’s watch.
¹ U.S. Department of Transportation, "Trump’s Transportation Secretary Announces Investigation into Deadly Florida Truck Crash," DOT Press Release, August 19, 2025.
