The United States Tightens CDL Rules for Migrant Truck Drivers

The United States has begun enforcing stricter non-domiciled CDL rules, limiting eligibility to specific visa categories and raising compliance challenges for migrant truck drivers. The measure, combined with tougher English-language enforcement, could add pressure to driver availability and cross-border freight operations.

The United States began enforcing on March 16, 2026 a new rule that tightens access to non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses, effectively shutting out asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients from obtaining or renewing these credentials under the new eligibility criteria. The measure could affect around 200,000 drivers, or roughly 5% of all commercial licenses in the United States.

Under the new framework, states can no longer accept Employment Authorization Documents as sufficient proof to issue these licenses. Instead, applicants must hold H-2A, H-2B, or E-2 nonimmigrant status and present a valid foreign passport plus Form I-94 documentation, states must verify status through the federal SAVE system.

The new framework also expands the number of transactions treated as “issuance,” making the rule more consequential for drivers already in the system. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) says states must verify lawful immigration status not only for new licenses but also for renewals, transfers, upgrades, reinstatements, duplicate issuances, and even address-change related reissuance events. States that were not compliant by the effective date were instructed to pause issuance of non-domiciled credentials until they could meet the new standard

FMCSA says the validity of a non-domiciled CDL may not exceed the applicant’s I-94 admit-until date or one year, whichever is sooner. The agency also says states must complete a downgrade within 30 days if they receive information from federal authorities showing the driver no longer holds qualifying lawful immigration status, or if SAVE cannot confirm the claim during verification.

In April 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating stricter enforcement of English proficiency requirements for commercial drivers, arguing that operators must be able to read traffic signs, communicate with law enforcement, and understand official instructions in English. The White House order also directed FMCSA to revise inspection procedures and ensure English-language violations can place drivers out of service, as previously reported by MBN.

CVSA confirmed that, pursuant to the executive order, failure to comply with the English-language requirement under 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) was added to the North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria, effective June 25, 2025. Together, the English-proficiency crackdown and the tighter licensing rule point to a broader federal effort to narrow who can legally operate commercial vehicles in the United States.

On Feb. 13, 2026, FMCSA said drivers who fail the English-language requirement can still be cited but should not be placed out of service when inspected inside US–Mexico border commercial zones. Search results for that article state that the guidance applies within border commercial zones, softening enforcement in those specific areas even as the broader federal policy remains in place. Independent reporting and FMCSA-linked FAQ materials point to the same distinction.

NATSO, citing US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, says immigrants account for about 18% of employed drivers, while the number of foreign-born truck drivers more than doubled to more than 720,000 in 2021 from 315,981 in 2000. MBN reports that 15.7% of drivers are immigrants and around 3.8% are estimated to have limited English proficiency, illustrating how workforce diversity and language enforcement are now colliding in the same regulatory space.

For cross-border and domestic freight markets, the new rule is part of a broader compliance turn in US trucking, one that combines immigration-status verification, licensing restrictions, and language enforcement. For fleets operating across North America, that could translate into tighter renewal timelines, higher compliance burdens, and more pressure on driver availability in key corridors.