The Texas House Transportation Committee held a hearing at the Capitol on Monday to look at cracking down on foreign holders of commercial driver’s licenses, or CDLs.

It comes amid a nationwide push to examine how CDLs are issued. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has led that charge.

Earlier this year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) implemented a new rule that significantly restricts which non‑U.S. citizens are eligible to obtain a CDL. The regulation introduced stricter vetting requirements for non‑domiciled applicants, who are individuals who reside temporarily in the U.S. but maintain permanent residence abroad.

Under the new rule, only individuals holding H‑2A, H‑2B, or E‑2 visas may apply for a CDL. Previously, an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), commonly known as a work permit, was sufficient for non‑citizens seeking to obtain the license. Federal regulators say the updated requirements are intended to close a safety loophole and strengthen the integrity of the CDL system.

According to FMCSA, about 200,000 current commercial drivers no longer meet the updated eligibility standards, about 5% of all truck drivers.

In some cases, commercial driver's licenses have remained valid long after an immigrant's work permits expired, while in other cases, states issued commercial driver’s licenses without properly verifying citizenship status.

In recent years, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said it has seen an increase in people getting a Licencia Federal de Conductor, the Mexican version of a CDL.

“In April of 2021, the country of Mexico went to a digital commercial license, and going to a digital license opened the door for this type of fraud,” Texas DPS Maj. Omar Villarreal said. “The driver in the U.S, never a citizen of Mexico, 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.”

It has allowed people from countries around the world to drive a commercial motor vehicle with little training.

In 2023, Texas lawmakers mandated that for a Mexican LFC to be valid in Texas, a driver would also need a work visa. That legislation, DPS and trucking industry leaders said, significantly reduced unqualified drivers on Texas highways and lowered the number of crashes across the State.

Villarreal said the state has seen roughly 500 crashes involving these drivers over the last few years. Crashes involving drivers who are not U.S. citizens are a main reason supporters of the changes say a change is needed. In particular, a crash in Fort Pierce, Florida, where a tractor-trailer driver not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash that killed three people, has gotten a lot of attention.

The case of the truck driver who was behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler involved in a collision on Interstate 35 that left five people dead and multiple people injured in North Austin last Spring has also come up. According to federal regulators, DPS “erroneously issued” Solomun Weldekeal-Araya a regular CDL rather than a non-domiciled license. DPS personnel “erroneously determined” his employment authorization and refugee status entitled him to "a regular CDL rather than a non-domiciled CDL.” As a result, DPS issued him a regular CDL when he was not eligible for one. 

Araya is facing 22 charges, including five counts of Manslaughter, two counts of Aggravated Assault Causing Serious Bodily Injury, and 15 counts of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, referring to the semi-truck. 

“We are talking about individuals operating vehicles weighing 80,000 pounds or more alongside our highways and Texas families,” said John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association. “This is not about where someone was born or the language they speak at home. It is whether the individual can safely perform that job.”

This follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in 2025, requiring commercial truck drivers to be proficient in English and requiring them to take a test to prove it. The order reinforces an existing federal law that requires English-language proficiency for any commercial drivers. 

“When COVID hit and the previous administration, with the influx of immigrants that came in, all of a sudden you started seeing them get CDL because it is an easy way to get a job,” said Jeff Langloss, the vice president of Policy, Regulatory Affairs & Safety Compliance for the Texas Trucking Association. “That shortage created a flood of these coming in to the third-party examiners nationwide. They are a key integral part of being able to get a CDL, because departments like DPS just don't have the manpower to do all this testing, but that also created an element of fraud in it, with people doing tests in other languages.”

Mexican CDLs are honored in the U.S., but the trucking industry said it may be time to rethink that in some cases. The reason Mexican CDLs are allowed in the U.S. is that they allow the transportation of goods across the border as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or USMCA, between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

However, the trucking industry said that has led companies not licensed in the U.S. to do much more, and in some cases, move loads within the U.S. They can often do jobs cheaper because they don't have qualified drivers. The ones they do have are paid as little as $25 or $50 per day. 

“If you go back and you look at the North American Free Trade Agreement, the USMCA, the intent for reciprocal agreement with that Mexican LFC was for the international transportation of goods. It was never intended to be used for intrastate purposes,” Villareal said. “These drivers are here in Texas undercutting American labor, working for American companies. They're unqualified drivers, and they're placing the public at risk.”

The trucking industry urged state lawmakers on Monday to consider a state prohibition on licenses issued by Canada and Mexico for participating in intrastate operations, to crack down on some of the loads carried by non-U.S. operators that are intended for U.S. jobs.

The industry said it believes it can balance legitimate international commerce with safety standards. 

Last fall, state regulators sent a letter to Texas leaders outlining issues with how the state issues non-domiciled CDLs and commercial learner permits, noting cases where DPS allowed a CDL to remain valid even if the driver was no longer legally authorized to work. 

In June, DPS announced that it will administer all commercial driver license tests, including commercial learner permit exams, in English only.

The agency said the change aligns state testing with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) English language proficiency requirements and is intended to ensure drivers can communicate safely on Texas roads.

In September 2025, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered DPS to strictly enforce the English proficiency rule for all commercial drivers, including those who hold intrastate licenses that allow them to operate only within Texas.  The governor ordered DPS' Commercial Vehicle Enforcement troopers to conduct English Language Proficiency reviews for all commercial license operators on Texas roadways.

The trucking industry supports the crackdown, arguing it will prevent fraudulent licenses and ensure that all commercial drivers meet proper training and qualification standards.

“Operating a commercial motor vehicle carries a tremendous responsibility,” Esparza said. “Being properly licensed is a reasonable expectation, being legally qualified to hold that license is a reasonable expectation, and possessing sufficient English proficiency to understand signs, communicate with law enforcement, and respond appropriately during an emergency is a reasonable expectation as well.”

Critics say this could reduce the number of new drivers entering the industry and significantly disrupt drivers who rely on commercial driving for their livelihood. 

“It seems like we're targeting people just because they have the Mexican CDL,” State Rep. Christina Morales (D-Houston) said.

The Trump administration has floated the idea of having soldiers become truck drivers when they leave the military to help replace the tens of thousands of immigrant drivers who have lost their licenses.

“The whole reason you look at our veterans out there, they go overseas, and they spend a year or two years on tour driving heavy equipment,” Esparza said. “They're more than likely to come back and want to be a truck driver. They have a higher proficiency or proclivity for success if they do so.”

In the last year, roughly 26,000 drivers have been pulled off the road for failing to demonstrate English proficiency, and according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 30,000 commercial licenses have been canceled because they were issued illegally. The federal government has shut down hundreds of truck driver training schools for producing drivers who were not properly qualified, but it has not downgraded the licenses for drivers who came out of those schools.

“Once they get that corruptly issued CDL in Florida because of interstate compact and reciprocity between states, they'll transfer it to Texas, and now they have a Texas CDL, and they're living and working here,” Villarreal said.

The federal government has threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal highway funding from several states, including Texas, if the state doesn’t change how it issues CDLs. States like California and New York have come under especially high scrutiny for not doing enough to revoke licenses.

“Texas can have the strongest CDL program in America, and yet if another state improperly issued a CDL, that driver can be operating on I-35, I-10, I-20, and any of our Texas highways today,” Esparza said. “So truly, by the nature of our interstate commerce highway system, a national standard is the right approach.”

Things got a little tense during the hearing, during a panel focused on whether the legislature should have more say in which construction or maintenance projects the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) prioritizes.

Several lawmakers, including former House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) and State Rep. Terry Canales (D-Edinburg), said they believe there is a major disconnect between TxDOT and the public.

"For y'all to come here and tell us that we have input or the community has input, I have watched it time and time again, from Jim Wells to Nueces to Hidalgo County,” Canales said. “Y'all hold these pseudo hearings, and they're nonsense. They're not true. Y'all don't do what's best for the public. In their opinion. Y'all make up your own minds, and I will tell you this: I, for one, am pretty tired of it."

The committee also discussed work and school zone safety, particularly cracking down on speeders in those areas. The construction industry said current tactics like lowering the speed limit and doubling speeding fines in work zones are not working, so they urged lawmakers to allow the use of automated devices in work zones. In 2025, there were 28,000 serious crashes and 203 fatalities in work zones.

These are not like red-light or FLOCK cameras. They are essentially a mobile radar. When the device catches someone speeding in those areas, it sends the information to a law enforcement officer further down the road, typically outside the work zone, who can stop the driver.

Last year, the Texas House passed legislation on this topic, but the legislation died in the Texas Senate.

The construction industry is hoping to take another run at it and have more success in the next legislative session, which starts in January.

Originally posted at KVUE: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/texas-legislature/texas-lawmakers-consider-further-restrict-foreign-commercial-drivers-licenses/269-23ec2dc3-8aaf-4dce-acd2-75db250bad8b