The Texas Department of Public Safety began administering the state\u2019s commercial drivers licenses and permit tests exclusively in English on Monday, the agency announced, following changes in federal requirements amid a nationwide crackdown on noncitizen truck drivers.<\/p>\n
All of Texas\u2019 CDL and commercial learner\u2019s permit knowledge tests will be conducted only in English, removing the Spanish option previously offered, according to the DPS press release<\/a> announcing the change.<\/p>\n The hands-on CDL skills test, which includes the driving and controls test, has always been conducted exclusively in English. Interpreters were previously barred from the skills portion of the test, and applicants were required to \u201cbe able to understand and respond to verbal commands and instructions in English by a skills test examiner,\u201d according to a previous version of DPS\u2019 website prior to Monday\u2019s change.<\/p>\n Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> directed<\/a> DPS in September to \u201cstrictly enforce\u201d the federal government\u2019s new English requirements and ordered the agency to conduct English Language Proficiency reviews for all commercial license operators. The changes are designed to align Texas\u2019 testing requirements with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the release said, which had its guidance altered<\/a> in May 2025 by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is simple: We\u2019re not putting up signs in any other language than English. We\u2019re requiring drivers speak and read English as a bare minimum requirement,\u201d Duffy said in an op-ed<\/a> in Breitbart previewing the 2025 changes.<\/p>\n In late April, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> announced investigations<\/a> into five trucking schools for allegedly disregarding English language requirements when administering CDL tests.<\/p>\n DPS\u2019 removal of the Spanish test option comes amid a series of restrictions Texas has enacted aimed at cracking down on commercial and noncommercial immigrant drivers in the state.<\/p>\n In September, Texas halted<\/a> commercial drivers licenses for refugees, people with asylum and DACA recipients, also following federal changes from Duffy, who said \u201cdangerous foreign drivers\u201d were being given licenses.<\/p>\n Texas\u2019 Department of Motor Vehicles also introduced photo identification requirements<\/a> for vehicle registrations and renewals in November aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from legally owning vehicles. Auto industry representatives and some county officials pushed back<\/a> against the changes, citing safety and economic concerns for those affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Department of Public Safety began administering the state\u2019s commercial drivers licenses and permit tests exclusively in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[94416,1836,88494,86573,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-318257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-alertable-abbott-chr","tag-chronnews","tag-chronpolitics","tag-chrontranspo","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}