The U.S. State Department is halting issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers in conjunction with a larger initiative from the Trump administration to review visas of more than 55 million people.
“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media post Thursday. “The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers.”
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A fatal crash on the Florida Turnpike on Aug. 12 that killed three people brought nationwide attention to long-held concerns by many in the trucking industry that the process to acquire and maintain a commercial driver’s license (CDL) is not stringent enough. CDLs are required to operate trucks in the U.S.
The truck driver, Harjinder Singh, was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide after the crash, in which he attempted to execute an illegal U-turn on the highway. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said Singh, an undocumented Indian national, entered the U.S. illegally when he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.
Residing in Stockton, Calif., Singh was extradited to Florida on Thursday.
Singh was issued a full-term CDL in Washington State in July 2023, before receiving a limited-term/non-domiciled CDL in California 12 months later. Both states are among 19, as well as Washington, D.C., which have enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.
Under current regulations, a foreign driver may obtain a U.S. CDL if they have an employment authorization document such as a temporary H-2B visa.
On Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) launched an on-site compliance investigation into the Florida highway crash, focused on both Singh and the motor carrier he was employed at, White Hawk Carriers, Inc.
“If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us. This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures,” said Secretary Duffy. “Non-enforcement and radical immigration policies have turned the trucking industry into a lawless frontier, resulting in unqualified foreign drivers improperly acquiring licenses to operate 40-ton vehicles. We will use every tool at our disposal to hold these states and bad actors accountable.”
Thus far, the probe’s preliminary results indicate that Singh did not speak English based on an interview with the driver. According to the FMCSA, the driver failed the assessment, providing correct responses to just two of 12 verbal questions and only accurately identifying one of four highway traffic signs.
The Department of Transportation said Washington State and New Mexico violated FMCSA rules. In Washington, asylum seekers or individuals without legal status are not eligible for a CDL.
It is unclear if the CDL from Washington was active at the time of the incident. Federal regulations prohibit holding more than one active CDL.
Last month, New Mexico State Police conducted a roadside inspection of Singh and issued a speeding ticket, but there is no indication that an English-language provision (ELP) assessment was administered.
New Mexico has not yet begun enforcing ELP as an out-of-service condition, despite the requirement being in effect since June 25 in the wake of an executive order from President Donald Trump.
DOT data also indicates that as of that date, White Hawk had out-of-service ratings of 23.4 percent for vehicles and 13.4 percent for drivers, both higher than national averages of 19 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively.
In reaction to the Florida accident, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) sent a letter to Secretary Duffy requesting suspension of states’ authority to issue non-domiciled CDLs for interstate commerce.
Following Rubio’s announcement that the issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers is being paused, American Trucking Associations president and CEO Chris Spear shared his supported the move.
“ATA supports pausing work visas for commercial drivers and believes the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs needs serious scrutiny, including the enforcement of entry-level driver training standards. At a minimum, we need better accounting of how many non-domiciled CDLs are being issued,” said Spear. “We also believe a surge in enforcement of key regulations—including motor carrier compliance—is necessary to prevent bad actors from operating on our nation’s highways, and we’ll continue to partner with federal and state authorities to identify where those gaps in enforcement exist.”
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