Illegal Immigrants Are Just The Tip Of The Iceberg In Trucking Industry’s Troubles

Illegal immigrants are slipping behind the wheel of 80,000-pound killing machines thanks to a glaring loophole — yet that’s only the latest symptom of a trucking industry gutted by loose training, rock-bottom wages and federal neglect.

While California has larger, regulated driving schools for truck drivers to obtain non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), a major loophole has allowed small private schools to dominate the low-cost end of the market with almost no state oversight. Under California law, private trucking programs charging $2,500 or less in tuition are exempt from licensing and regulation by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE), effectively creating a gray area where nearly 200 such schools can issue credentials with little accountability.

Lewie Pugh, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), told the DCNF that this lack of enforcement is part of a broader federal failure in trucking oversight. He argued that even the basic federal Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) requirements are poorly enforced, allowing inadequate programs to persist and produce underprepared drivers — foreign or domestic — who pose risks on the highways.

“We looked at this whole CDL thing back in, I think it’s 91, 92. They’re supposed to make this all universal,” Pugh told the DCNF. “Everybody had the same license, passed the same training, same thing. But the problem was we passed the licensing rule that the states did the app[lication]. But we never really did anything with the training. That’s the problem.”

“I think California’s crazy for a $2,500 tuition unless you want it to be regulated. Sure, no matter if it’s free, it should be regulated. But the thing is, it really needs to be regulated at a federal level to begin with and come down. Because again, most people get CDLs and get trucking. They cross state lines. They go out of the United States. So we need something more tangible for that, more teeth into it. I mean, they started what they call the Entry Level Driver Training Program in 2022,” Pugh said. “That’s the first thing ever that you’ve ever really had to do anything to become a trucker. But even that’s a joke.”

Pugh described the federal Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) program, launched in 2022 as the first real requirement for new truckers, as fundamentally ineffective. Applicants simply complete an online registration, find a registered trainer (who needs only minimal qualifications), and have the trainer check off topics taught — often with no meaningful behind-the-wheel instruction required.

“I mean, so for example, I have 25 years’ experience traveling miles without a truck. I could be a trainer. I could take you tomorrow. You could fill out the paperwork on the Entry Level Driver Training. I can fill out to be your trainer,” Pugh said. “We [could] start on Saturday. On Sunday, I can go down through and check mark. I’ve taught you everything, hand it back.”

“And if you can go past the maneuverability test, driving around a cone, you’re a truck driver. I mean, that’s how simple it is and how easy it is,” Pugh added. “So the trucking school not only can train you, but they can test you. You think they’re going to fail you after you give them a bunch of money? They’re going to pass you. So it’s just a bad system all the way around.”

California’s handling of non-domiciled CDLs has drawn intense federal scrutiny, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) uncovering “systemic policy, procedural, and programming errors” in the state’s program.

In fact, audits found licenses issued to ineligible foreign nationals, including those whose legal presence had lapsed and validity periods extended far beyond work authorizations. Violations have also allowed unqualified drivers, including illegal immigrants, to operate massive commercial vehicles, with some accidents by big rig drivers resulting in the deaths of others on the road.

However, Pugh said that while these licenses and how they’re obtained pose a serious safety risk, they are merely the latest symptom of a much larger, decades-old failure that begins at the federal level: sky-high turnover and stagnant pay that have driven qualified American drivers out of the profession.

“This all stems to a much bigger problem that’s been going on in trucking for years and decades, about we’re not training people. We’re not preparing them for a career or a positive thing,” Pugh said. “We’re treating them like a disposable commodity, pretty much, with drivers. That’s all because we’ve preached for years and years and years about this driver shortage that there’s never been. We have a turnover problem, but not a shortage.”

“That’s led us down this path of getting people behind the wheel of trucks or letting people start trucking companies overnight with really no looking into them or finding anything else,” Pugh added. “So with that all being said, that’s led us to where we are now. And it’s the reason we have all these people, because we’ve taken a career that used to be a very well-paying, middle class job, and we’ve just ran it to the bottom on a race to the bottom to where nobody in our country even wants to do it.”

Major carriers routinely experience turnover rates exceeding 90% annually, a figure Pugh says reflects deliberate business choices rather than a labor shortage. Drivers are treated as interchangeable parts, pushed to maximize miles under rigid hours-of-service rules while paid by the mile rather than by the hour, meaning unpaid detention time at shippers or receivers eats into earnings and encourages risky behavior to make up lost income.

“I mean, can you imagine where you work if you’ve turned over 90% of your staff, your workers every year, how ineffective you’d be? But seeing trucking, that’s the business model they’ve found to follow because it puts profits over people. It puts profits over safety,” Pugh told the DCNF. “And that’s why we’re seeing these accidents.”

Pugh emphasized that real wages for truck drivers have not kept pace with inflation since the 1970s, turning what was once a solid middle-class career into one that few Americans are willing to pursue. The constant push to keep labor costs low, he argued, has created a vicious cycle: poor pay and conditions drive turnover, which incentivizes bringing in less-experienced drivers through lax pathways — including the non-domiciled CDL programs now under scrutiny.

While the Trump administration’s emergency restrictions on non-domiciled CDLs, sanctions against California, and the new English proficiency requirement in the government funding bill have begun to address some of the most immediate safety concerns, industry advocates say deeper structural changes are still needed.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has pressed federal officials to strengthen Entry-Level Driver Training requirements and improve oversight of training providers. In an October 2025 letter to Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation, OOIDA called for mandatory behind-the-wheel training hours and urged the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to more quickly remove non-compliant or inadequate programs from its Training Provider Registry — particularly those tied to drivers involved in preventable fatal crashes.

The OOIDA described Secretary Duffy’s actions on non-domiciled CDLs as “an important step toward safer highways and a stronger, more professional trucking industry.” Whether these measures, combined with potential future changes in upcoming highway reauthorization bills, will resolve the longstanding problems of high turnover, stagnant wages, and inconsistent training standards remains an open question for regulators, carriers, and drivers alike.