Feds Pull Accreditation From Wisconsin CDL Schools in English Rules Sweep

A semitruck on the Highway 12 bridge crossing over the Wisconsin River in Sauk City, Wis. on June 11, 2021. Bill Martens/WPR

President Donald Trump’s administration says it is pulling accreditation from more than 100 trucking schools, including three in Wisconsin, as part of its effort to crack down on immigration.

The administration accuses those schools of “repeatedly” certifying drivers who did not meet federal qualification standards related to proficiency in English.

That’s after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says it reviewed roadside inspection records for drivers who were cited for not meeting English Language Proficiency requirements, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

As a result, federal officials say they’ve decertified 111 Entry-Level Driver Training providers — removing them from the federal Training Provider Registry — on an “emergency” basis.

These are programs that offer training required to obtain a Commercial Driver’s License, or CDL, a federally regulated and state-issued certification that allows a person to drive a semitruck or other specialized kinds of vehicles.

According to a list provided to WPR by the U.S. Department of Transportation, three of those programs are in Wisconsin: CDL Pro School in Kenosha, On Your Way CDL Training in Milwaukee, and Tez CDL School in Sturtevant.

At a news conference in Detroit Monday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the targeted schools are the “greatest offenders” out of 5,000 schools cited for overly lax English language requirements.

He said another 160 schools were targeted for fraudulently misrepresenting their qualifications, not offering proper training or having unlicensed instructors.

Under Duffy, the Department of Transportation has been withholding funding from states that it finds isn’t doing enough to stop undocumented people from getting commercial licenses.

In one high-profile example, Duffy threatened to withhold $160 million from California if that state didn’t cancel thousands of licenses. A lawsuit, filed in response by organizations representing Sikh and other South Asian drivers, is in federal court.

Two of the three Wisconsin schools that were targeted offered Russian language instruction, according to their websites and social media pages.

It’s not uncommon to offer bilingual training to become CDL-certified, and an estimated 200,000 immigrants hold CDLs. By law, any driver must have valid work authorization.

Federal law mandates that drivers demonstrate a certain level of English proficiency before getting on the road.

That’s a safety measure, said Dan Johnson, president of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association, an advocacy and trade association that is supportive of DOT’s recent actions.

“It’s not necessarily you have to be fluent in English, but you need to be proficient,” he said. “You need to understand what these signs mean, what these traffic warnings mean and what a law enforcement officer is telling you at an inspection site.”

The federal counterpart to Johnson’s group, which regulates the industry, tightened requirements about English proficiency following a Trump executive order. New penalties would make failing an English assessment grounds for being removed from the road.

These policies are tied to Trump’s overall crackdown on immigration. In the Monday press conference announcing DOT’s raid of CDL programs deemed fraudulent, Duffy introduced Dalilah Coleman, a child who was disabled after an accident with a semitruck being operated by an undocumented immigrant. That’s one of several high-profile traffic accidents that the Trump administration has cited to promote stricter regulations of immigrant drivers.

“All I’m saying is, if you’re here illegally and you can’t speak the language and you’re not well trained, you don’t deserve to be in a big rig, driving on American roads endangering American citizens,” Duffy said.

But advocacy groups for immigrant communities that are well represented in the trucking industry, such as South Asians in California, say these cases smear all immigrants as being uniquely dangerous on the road, and make it harder for immigrants to work stable, middle class jobs.

Wisconsin trucking schools among dozens shuttered as part of immigration crackdown was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.