The Texas House Committee on Transportation addressed the issue of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) held by nondomiciled drivers and whether said operators are responsible for an increase in traffic crashes during a hearing on Monday. 

Among the charges issued by Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) during the interim for lawmakers to study ahead of the next legislative session was one that’s become a focal point for transportation leaders under President Donald Trump’s administration: foreign nationals holding CDLs. 

CDLs are required for operating vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of over 26,000 pounds; vehicles designed to carry 16 or more passengers; or vehicles transporting hazardous materials requiring placarding, such as semi-trucks, 18-wheelers, buses, or dump trucks.

Texas ended its issuance of CDLs to certain noncitizens in September 2025 after an emergency rule change was issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation, citing “a troubling series of fatal crashes caused by non-domiciled CDL holders.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) announced in June that it would only offer CDL and permit exams in English moving forward, after previously offering them in both English and Spanish. That same month, it shared that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) had approved issuing CDLs and CLPs again to those with H-2A visas, or Temporary Agricultural Workers. 

The charge that was discussed on Monday by the Transportation Committee requested that lawmakers “evaluate the presence of non-domiciled holders operating in Texas, including whether their presence correlates with an increase in traffic incidents.” 

“You had people from all over the world … illegally in the United States that found an easy way to make a living driving a commercial motor vehicle. There were unqualified drivers. They put public safety at risk,” DPS Major Omar Villareal said as the first resource witness to speak on the issue. 

He detailed what he called a “high volume of fraud that was being propagated in the Mexican government” after Mexico’s switch to issuing digital CDLs in April 2021 — which he believed “opened the door for this type of fraud.”

Villareal continued, “The driver … would reach out to a contact by word-of-mouth in the Mexican government, wire money over, and instantly would receive a digital Mexican license. We started seeing an upward trend in commercial vehicle crashes with these drivers.”

He suggested that legislation previously passed by the Texas Legislature requiring a work visa for truck drivers with a Licencia Federal de Conductor (LFC), Mexico’s federal CDL, to legally operate in the state “improved the issue quite a bit, but over the years, we've still seen that in existence.” Villareal added that the Mexican LFC was meant for international commerce, never for interstate purposes. 

“These drivers are here in Texas, undercutting American labor, working for American companies. They’re unqualified drivers; they’re placing the public at risk,” he concluded. 

John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association (TXTA), also testified before the committee and confirmed that his organization “supports strong enforcement of English language proficiency requirements and meaningful reforms governing non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses.”

“What happens on our Texas highways and in our state often leads policy for the entire border and conversely, what we do regarding commercial driver qualifications has implications far beyond our state,” he continued. 

“The significance of renewed enforcement is already apparent. Now, TXTA believes we should address that problem before the driver gets on the highway, not after an enforcement officer discovers it during a roadside inspection.” 

A bit of pushback occurred when state Rep. Christina Morales (D-Houston) questioned the panelists about the issue, asking if “this panel [is] trying to say that people from other countries are worse drivers than the ones here in the United States?”

Esparza rejected that framing, saying that drivers are most often discovered as being unlawfully present in the country after a federal inspection when the commercial vehicle is stopped. He explained that these drivers who may be operating lawfully with a Mexican LFC but are in the country unlawfully are being paid much less than an American citizen driver and are thus undercutting American jobs.  

The former chair of the Transportation Committee, state Rep. Terry Canales (D-Edinburg), asked the panelists, “Just to clarify, no one here is against foreign drivers? We’re against foreign drivers who are obtaining their credentials illegally?” to which the panelists all answered yes. 

The general consensus among witnesses was support for further reform in English proficiency requirements for CDL issuance and maintenance, in order to avoid issues on the roads caused by a lack of language proficiency after the fact, and support for the Trump administration’s efforts to address the issue. 

With the 90th Legislative Session fast approaching in January, the Texas Senate will also examine nondomiciled CDL holders in its own Transportation Committee hearing on August 25, as the two chambers work to better understand the topic and determine what legislation should be filed in response.

Originally posted in The Texan: https://thetexan.news/issues/transportation/texas-house-transportation-committee-hears-testimony-on-commercial-drivers-license-carried-by-non-domiciled-drivers/article_7fa87831-a866-483b-acf2-c39a5260f5cf.html