OPINION:
America’s highways were never meant to be a proving ground for foreign nationals who cannot read a stop sign or understand a basic English command from a state trooper.
Yet that is exactly what anti-borders politicians and bureaucrats in multiple states have made them.
By recklessly issuing commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to illegal aliens and other foreign nationals who lack English proficiency, proper training and lawful immigration status, these states have handed out what amounts to a license to kill. A growing number of innocent lives are being lost because of this political hubris.
My organization’s newly released investigative report, “License to Kill: Uncovering the Anti-Borders Takeover of the National CDL Program,” lays bare the scale of this betrayal. In 2025 alone, at least 17 fatal crashes involving foreign national CDL holders claimed more than 30 American lives.
Among the victims is 5-year-old Dalilah Coleman of California. An illegal alien’s 18-wheeler slammed into her family’s vehicle, leaving her with lifelong disabilities. Dalilah’s near-death experience is not an isolated tragedy; it is the predictable result of states treating federal safety standards as optional suggestions.
It should come as no surprise that sanctuary California stands out as the worst offender. Between 2022 and 2025, the Golden State issued more than 128,000 non-domiciled CDLs, more than doubling its annual output. Applicants were allowed to take knowledge tests in Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi, Russian and Spanish.
First-attempt pass rates were dismal: just 22% for Arabic speakers and 26% for Punjabi speakers, compared with 63% for those tested in English.
When drivers cannot comprehend the questions about air brakes, weight limits or hazardous materials in the language of American roads, they have no business operating an 80,000-pound rig.
Other states have issued multi-year credentials that extended far beyond the expiration of applicants’ lawful presence documents. They created “temporary” licenses never reported to the national Commercial Driver’s License Information System, leaving law enforcement flying blind. Some even produced credentials listing “No Given Name.”
As sanctuary politicians virtue signal their own alleged compassion, the bodies are piling up. Consider Bekzhan Beishekeev, an illegal immigrant from Kyrgyzstan with a Pennsylvania CDL. He allegedly failed to brake and swerved into a van in Indiana, killing four people. Or Haitian national Michael Bon, an illegal alien holding a Massachusetts CDL, charged after his rig struck and killed a Pennsylvania state trooper.
The common traits in these and other cases: limited or nonexistent English skills, inability to read road signs, inadequate training and a commercial license obtained under loose state standards that ignored federal requirements.
English proficiency is not a cultural preference’ it is a core safety mandate. Truck drivers must communicate with dispatchers, read complex road signs, understand emergency instructions and interact with law enforcement during inspections. Federal rules have long required it.
When states dilute those standards by offering tests in foreign languages or ignoring proficiency altogether, the results speak for themselves.
The Trump administration has begun reclaiming control of the situation. President Trump’s April 2025 executive order restored English-language proficiency as a basis for placing commercial drivers out of service. A March 2026 final rule sharply limited non-domiciled CDL eligibility to only certain visa holders, required states to verify applicants’ immigration status through federal databases and capped the length of CDL validity.
The Department of Transportation has sanctioned California and New York for their noncompliance with federal CDL standards, withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in federal highway funds. These administrative fixes are encouraging, but they are not enough when states remain determined to circumvent them.
It is now on Congress to lock in the administration’s reclamation efforts through legislation. FAIR is calling for the swift passage of Dalilah’s Law: permanent statutory language that bars states from issuing CDLs to illegal aliens, mandates English-only testing and demonstrated proficiency, imposes automatic funding penalties for noncompliance and closes every loophole these jurisdictions have exploited.
These reforms will restore the integrity of a program designed to protect the public, not serve as a backdoor work authorization for those who entered or remain in the country unlawfully.
American truckers — citizens and lawful permanent residents who meet rigorous standards — deserve better than competition from unqualified foreign drivers. Families traveling our interstates deserve better than the risk of a driver who cannot read the word yield.
The commercial driver’s license was never intended as a license to kill.
• Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.