By Erin Schniederjan via The Daily Signal | February 12, 2026
Last Friday, Florida began administering English-only driver’s license exams, only the fourth state to do so. English-only driving exams make the roads safer for all drivers, and every other state should follow suit.
Recently, the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles office announced that all driver’s license exams will be administered in English only, including all knowledge exams, commercial learner’s permit, and commercial driver’s license exams. All road signs are in English, so it’s common sense for all driving exams to only be administered in English.
In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to strengthen laws ensuring English proficiency for commercial drivers. Before Trump took office, English proficiency requirements were not enforced to obtain a commercial driver’s license.
In 2016, under the Obama administration, commercial drivers who failed to prove proficiency in English, including reading and speaking English and understanding the road signs in English, were not prohibited from operating commercial vehicles.
The Biden administration launched the Commercial Motor Vehicle Operator Safety Training Grant Program in 2024, which included expanding commercial driving opportunities to refugees. Multiple people have died because of the lack of English-language proficiency enforcement.
In August, Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old alien from India who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018, killed three Floridians. He tried to make an illegal U-turn across all lanes of a highway, causing an SUV to crash into the truck.
Singh had obtained a commercial license in Washington state and California. The Department of Transportation revealed that he failed to prove proficiency in English, both on paper and in reading road signs. Singh was issued his Washington state commercial license in July 2023 and his California license in July 2024.
In December, Yisong Huang, a 54-year-old Chinese national who illegally entered the U.S. in 2023, killed a woman and injured two others in Tennessee when he crashed into a tractor-trailer while distracted by his phone.
Huang obtained a Class B license in New York under the Biden administration because he was provided with a Social Security card and work authorization papers.
According to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Huang “failed a basic English test” but was issued a license earlier in 2025 anyway because he was given a Social Security card and work documents—both necessary to obtain a license—when he was released from U.S. Border Patrol after crossing illegally.
Last week, Bekzhan Beishekeev, a 30-year-old illegal alien from Kyrgyzstan, killed a family of four in Indiana. He obtained his commercial license in Pennsylvania.
If someone is incapable of taking a driving exam in the same language as the road signs, then that person should not be allowed to drive. Doing so puts American drivers at risk, which has, unfortunately, already happened.
Florida follows Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming as the fourth state to administer driving exams in English only. California offers its regular Class C driver’s license exam in 10 languages, including Chinese, Farsi, Punjabi, and Spanish. New York also offers its driver’s license exam in multiple languages, including Arabic, Bengali, Haitian Creole, and Urdu.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ move to make driver’s license exams in English only follows the Trump administration’s efforts to hold trucking companies accountable for hiring non-English-speaking drivers, which would also aid in preventing illegal aliens from being hired.
The Trump administration also arrested over 140 illegal alien truck drivers in Operation Midway Blitz, and thousands of truck drivers and commercial driver’s licenses have been affected for failing English proficiency.
Illegal aliens who enter our country are not authorized to work. Nor should they receive ill-gotten benefits subsequent to illegally entering the U.S., including a driver’s license or a commercial driver’s license.
To save lives, it is imperative that the Department of Transportation continue to remove every illegal alien driving with a commercial license from our roads. And states should ensure that all types of drivers can pass English-only road safety exams to receive a license.
Erin Schniederjan is a research assistant for homeland security and Asian studies at the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
Original article link
