A new Department of Transportation rule is threatening the commercial driving licenses of nearly 200,000 immigrant truck drivers, including many who have worked legally in the industry for decades and maintain clean driving records.
The restriction, which took effect in March, limits commercial driver licenses to immigrants with specific employment authorization statuses. Those with asylum, refugee status, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protection are now disqualified from obtaining or renewing licenses, leaving tens of thousands stranded in regulatory limbo as lawsuits challenging the policy wind through federal courts.
Sarabjeet Singh, who has driven trucks in central California for 12 years, attempted to renew his license last month when it expired and was turned away. His wife, Kavita Patel, described the impact as devastating across multiple dimensions. "This not only affected us financially, but this is a huge burden mentally, emotionally, physically," she said. "People think you can just find another job, but your entire skill set and experience has been built around driving this big rig."
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy justified the rule by citing safety concerns, pointing to five fatal accidents involving immigrant truck drivers. However, those accidents represented just 0.31 percent of all large-truck fatal crashes in the first half of 2025. The National Safety Council reported that large trucks were involved in about 5,200 fatal accidents in 2024, down 3 percent from the previous year. Additionally, one-fifth of truck drivers involved in fatal accidents were operating without a commercial license.
Duffy claimed licenses were "being issued to dangerous foreign drivers, often times illegally," calling the situation "a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road." A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration spokesperson denied that the policy change toward immigrants is racist.
The AFL-CIO, representing millions of workers across the country, pushed back against the administration's safety rationale in a March letter to Congress. "While DOT premised its rule on safety, its own data indicated that the CDL holders excluded by the rule (immigrant drivers) were involved in fatal crashes at a lower rate than CDL holders who are not excluded, meaning the rule would worsen, and not improve, safety," the federation wrote.
Critics note the Trump administration has provided no data showing that foreign commercial driver license holders pose a specific safety threat beyond the five accidents cited. The rule affects immigrants who obtained their licenses through legal channels and have maintained clean records. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made similar safety claims when announcing last August that the State Department would stop issuing work visas for commercial truck drivers, framing immigrants as threats to American workers' livelihoods.
Veteran drivers say the restrictions unfairly target an entire group based on the actions of a handful. Ignacio Romero, who has worked as a truck driver in California for 37 years, has experienced repeated traffic stops this year. "I believe the sentiment for our safety is right, but let's focus on the ones involved," Romero said. "Why just put a general blanket statement and punish 200,000 for the actual five drivers who were in accidents?"
Romero pointed to a broader pattern. From 2000 to 2021, the population of foreign-born truck drivers in the United States grew from 316,000 to more than 720,000. "I've always been suspicious that it was more racism, more blanket statements than holding the individuals involved in those events accountable," he said.
Narinder Johal, another California-based driver with nearly 30 years on the road, noted the rule's logical flaw. "The people who were working, paying their taxes, fulfilling all the rules and regulations, what the government issued, they're off the road right now," Johal said. Those driving without proper authorization face no new enforcement under the rule, he argued.
Democratic-led states have attempted to resist the DOT mandate. New York leaders tried to refuse the department's demand to revoke licenses from certain drivers, but the DOT threatened to withhold federal transportation funding in response.
Billy Randel, chief organizer of Truckers Movement for Justice and a driver in New York for decades, connected the immigrant targeting to larger industry problems. "They're focused on the worker who speaks little, if any, English, who came here looking for a better life," Randel said. "They forgot their ancestors did the same thing."
The targeting of immigrant drivers predates this latest rule. Last April, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an English proficiency requirement for truck drivers into law.
Julio Ortiz, a truck driver based out of Mexico who regularly crosses the border for work, called the restriction unjust. "I believe it's a grave error to place such an obstacle in the path of people who simply wish to work honestly," Ortiz said.
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration's selective use of five accidents to disqualify hundreds of thousands of legally authorized workers while ignoring actual safety data suggests the motivation here has little to do with road safety."
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