Sean Duffy warns 'rampant fraud' in truck licensing puts Americans at risk during holiday travel
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that "rampant fraud" has allowed illegal immigrants to obtain commercial driver’s licenses, putting Americans at risk as millions hit the road for the holidays.
AAA predicts nearly 110 million Americans will travel by car this holiday season, a roughly 2% increase from 2024. Ahead of the travel surge, Duffy said his department has been working to make sure drivers can travel safely on the nation’s highways.
"We have a lot of these CDL mills where you just have rampant fraud," Duffy said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday.
"You have, you know, illegals coming in, basically getting signed off on by the driving school, and then they go to the DMV and they get a license and they hit the road. They have no training," he added.
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Duffy has led the Trump administration’s crackdown on fraudulent CDL operations and illegal immigrant truck drivers. He warned states they could lose millions in federal funding if they fail to comply with federal commercial driver licensing and training rules.
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"I guarantee you that the federal taxpayer is not [going to] fund their roads and bridges and their systems when they're putting illegals on the roads and endangering the lives of the American people," Duffy said of the states involved.
States including California, New York and Colorado are already at risk of losing millions in federal funding over violations, according to the Department of Transportation. On Monday, the agency accused Colorado of noncompliance, threatening to withhold $24 million in federal highway funds.
"They're slow-walking us. They're basically not pulling back licenses. So we’ve threatened to say, ‘Well, we’re going to pull back your money if you don’t pull back licenses,’" Duffy said.
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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has pushed back on the secretary’s claims. He said the state completed an investigation and is conducting a final review before notifying CDL holders whose credentials were wrongly issued, according to the Associated Press.
Duffy warned that the issue is not confined to individual states but poses a wider risk to drivers nationwide.
"If you can't speak English, if you haven't gone through the proper training courses, you shouldn't be behind the wheel of a big rig," Duffy said.
"These are 80,000-pound vehicles that can be incredibly dangerous when things go wrong."