State Department Pausing Visas for Commercial Truck Drivers
The move comes after illegal alien Harjinder Singh, 28, killed three people in South Florida after doing an illegal U-turn.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the department paused issuing employment visas for commercial truck drivers.
“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,” Rubio wrote on X.
The move comes after illegal alien Harjinder Singh, 28, killed three people in South Florida after doing an illegal U-turn.
Singh entered the U.S. illegally in 2018. He told DHS he feared for his life in India and stayed.
However, then-President Donald Trump’s administration did not issue Singh a work visa.
But in 2021, former President Joe Biden’s administration gave Dingh a work permit, allowing him to obtain a license in California.
Singh received a full-term commercial driver’s license in Washington in 2023 despite not being eligible for one.
To make matters worse, in July 2024, California issued Singh a limited-term non-domiciled commercial driver’s license despite failing the English Language Proficiency assessment, answering two of 12 verbal questions, and accurately identifying only one of four highway signs.
Department of Transportation Secretary issued “an order outlining new guidance to enforce English proficiency requirements for truckers along with a nationwide audit of state’s that provide people non-domiciled commercial drivers licenses to non-U.S. citizens.”
Politico noted that New Mexico police pulled over Singh on July 3. The officers gave him a speeding ticket, but did not give him an English language test.
The government issued 1,490 H-2B visas for truckers in the fiscal year 2025.
The H-2B visas allow “U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary nonagricultural jobs.”
The employers must meet specific criteria before any worker can receive the visa. The main issue is that the industry does not have “enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work.”
The trucking industry has a major driver shortage.
Despite the shortage, the American Trucking Associations applauded Rubio’s decision:
The ATA said it supported the the government’s pause of work visas, adding that the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses to foreigners “needs serious scrutiny.”
“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,” ATA Chief Executive Officer Chris Spear said in a statement.
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Comments
Lets just End all of the H-series Visa programs. We have more than enough people to do the jobs.
H=series visas are routinely abused by employers who use them to hire controllable foreign employees at lower wages than Americans even though the foreigner is quite often not as capable or talented as an American. There is no excuse for bringing them in.
Harjinder Singh could not speak English and was unable identify most traffic signs. I wonder if the FBI is investigating the person who tested him and issued the CA driver’s license.
excellent point about who gave him the pass
PROSECUTE!!!!
make sure to go to the top of that chain.
Some low level guy likely didn’t make the call but was told not to hold illegals to the same standards as Americans.
If Singh could not speak English then he was in violation of 49 CFR § 391.11(b)(2) and the person or persons that allowed him to slide on that requirement should be held accountable.
Source:
49 CFR § 391.11(b)(2)
Of course he was. One of the parts of the CDL test is recognizing road signs by shape and he couldn’t even do that. The person who have him his license road test had to know he couldn’t speak English and the company that hired him is required to give him a road test before putting him into a truck and they had to know. There are a lot of people that have some explaining to do
Even better, the estate of the deceased should sue California’s DMV, including the (currently unknown) people who passed him despite his having failed multiple parts of the qualifying tests. Demand discovery as to all individuals involved. With the fact that they do not have immunity because they clearly broke the law.
All while DoT is looking to bring charges against those in charge of CA’s DMV.
Why the hell were we EVER issuing visas for commercial truck drivers in the first place.
This is just demonstrating what a joke the visa program is.
Because there has been a driver shortage for years due to job conditions and low pay. CDL holders operate on a standard 70 hr week and many are gone from home several days to weeks at a time. When they get home they get 1 or 2 days off then back out again. Combine that with low pay, rude to nasty customers and trucking companies that regularly abuse the drivers and you can’t find enough people to do the job anymore
“low pay” its a free market and even multi millionaire ball bouncers complain
any trucking co that abuses workers should be investigated immediately
its an honorable job, as you know, and respect is important ,both ways
but the lefty/rino rulers support regs that protect the companies when they shouldnt and that is why there is so much division in the industry let alone the country
the only people we want angry are the socialists b/c they are being denied their agenda
You have an ill informed view of the industry. I spent nearly 35yrs in it driving about 4,000,000 miles doing all facets from railhead and port containers, flatbed, tank, refrigerated, walking floor, logs, coast to coast and local pick up/ delivery before retiring. My wife still runs a fleet of about 100 trucks.
So I’m sure you’ve been raising pay to attract drivers and reduce the strain on your employees, right?
The shortage of drivers to fill available positions demonstrates the ‘free market’ hasn’t reached an equilibrium price point for driver pay. If it had there wouldn’t be a shortage of drivers nor crony capitalist demands to import foreign workers to work for lower wages and artificially suppress wages in the industry.
Yup. This is pure “who will drive our trucks?”
As an RVer, I have noticed a boom in new Indian restaurants in towns along interstates. Most of them are located across the street from – or even in – truck stops. Yes, it is a trend.
You can’t pay Americans enough to fill truck seats anymore. My wife has guys approaching 6 figures and she has turnover. It’s the lifestyle and the competitive industry which has people undercutting rates to get the freight. One company my wife worked for had a contract with the world’s largest retailer. When it came up for bid they lost it to someone who underbid them by 1/4 cent per mile.
Diver64,
There’s gotta be a combo of pay, benefits and quality of life/time off the road that would attract sufficient US Citizens to drive. Now that might mean a severe spike in transportation costs to pay for it but there is a package with X cost attached… but IMO if companies can’t/won’t offer that number then no way in hell should non Citizens be imported to do the work for a lower rate than US Citizens would do it for. Scarcity in anything drives prices higher …then people respond to the incentive of the higher price offered to provide that ‘thing’ b/c now the price is attractive enough to enter the market.
We’ve had a five decade decline in real wages in the USA. Companies have grown used to being able to low ball workers. Consumers have gotten used to certain price levels for goods/services due to the artificially suppressed wages. It will be a heck of a wake up call for the entire economy when/if wages rise back towards the same comparative wage purchasing power of the early ’70s.
CommoChief,
I’m sure there is but if a 6 figure income isn’t enough then what is? I’ve said for decades that drivers are not paid close to what they should be but if they were is everyone comfortable with prices on everything and I mean everything spiking 50 to 100%? Driver pay is too low but you can make a living at it. The problem is finding people that want to work, more specifically, are ok working a 70 hour week with no overtime and being away from home for days or weeks at a time. You can’t even get enough young people to work at a McDonalds for $20 hour. They all want to graduate high school and sit behind a desk making $75,000. Driver churn at companies is over 100% and always has been. There is no magic wand to wave unless you want a California style take over of the industry and government mandated pay. The few local jobs that pay well and get you home at night are highly sought after and nearly impossible to get for anyone other than guys like me with decades of experience and millions of safe miles and by that time we are leaving the industry having had enough.
Another big barrier to getting young people and the unemployed into the industry is the background and drug tests. Trucking fleets are all required to test potential employees before hiring and after hiring all CDL holders are subject to random urine tests. A company must randomly test 50% of their drivers every calendar year. Companies break this down different ways either dividing it up by quarter or monthly. If your picked for a random it doesn’t matter if your name comes up when your on the road, they find a place to test you and your required to go. If you refuse your CDL is immediately suspended. If you show up to a place for testing and you leave before the sample is collected, your license is suspended. If for some reason you can’t go before they close, your license is suspended. With the increasingly legalization and use of marihuana fewer and fewer young people are interested.
As for the genius that asked if I was raising pay, not only am I retired but doofus has no idea how capitalism works. You can only pay employees up to the point where you stop making a profit. Rates are competitive and if you find freight paying , say, $500 for a load but it costs you $600 to move it due to insurance, bonding, fuel, equipment costs, pay etc you are not in business long. Companies do take freight like this in order to move a truck into a lane where higher dollar freight exists but it’s for that reason. Ever wonder why something is so expensive in one place but not another? I’ll give you an example. I used to run paper into Miami on a dedicated run from the North East. The rate was very steep to do it because there is no freight coming out of south Florida and I more likely than not had to drive back up to north Florida or Georgia to get a load and someone is paying that deadhead fuel and my getting up there to get it.
This is not to mention the “stop and piss on command” war-on-drugs shakedowns, truck scale shenanigans, inflexible rest requirements but nowhere to park.
America has a problem with addictions. I was just watching a show on tv. It was about a lady who used to be addicted to the hokey pokey, but then turned around.
Don’t quit your day job.
The “stop and piss” thing only happens if you get in an accident or there is reasonable suspicion your on something. Truck scale shenanigans do happen, though and some scales are notorious for it. Banning, CA for example every driver knows about. I was once moving an empty flatbed from a yard in Phoenix to the terminal in LA. I got stopped for an inspection. It took them a couple of hours but I got a ticket for a cracked stake pocket on the trailer and that was all they could find. Didn’t matter I was empty and not hauling anything. Parking is another whole thing. In most if not all metro areas if your not parked by 1500 or 1600 you are not finding a place for your 10hr break and if you can’ t find one then get stopped you will get a ticket with the “you should have planned better or stopped sooner” line. I have a million stories like that just for myself and there are tens of thousands of men and woman running right now that can also supply an endless amount of them.
I’ll say this. The DOT cops I ran into over the years were overwhelmingly good people. I can count on one hand the nasty ones I dealt with who were just looking to get you for something and were totally unreasonable.
“Combine that with low pay…”
Uhm, if visas were not being given to foreign drivers, wages would grow until the job became attractive enough to recruit American citizens.
Maybe, maybe not. At some point the pay will rise to the level that companies would have to charge so much per mile to move it that the shippers couldn’t afford to have it moved.
When US drivers can’t get the work they need we don’t need imports.
the man himself djt right now saying what has to be said as he takes questions from the press and puts it maga!!!
end welfare and all of a sudden hungry people want to work
Do you really want angry, lazy people forced to drive an 80,000 lb truck down the road?
What “forced”? Unless you mean “forced” as in I’m forced to work every day because otherwise I won’t eat or be able to pay the mortgage.
Trust me, those folks won’t be taking jobs that require long, hard days. But they might free up people who ARE willing to take those jobs to pursue them.
It’s a real shame that someone always has to die before anybody notices deficiencies like this.
death is an enjoyment of the lefty
how ironic
Just the tip of the iceberg with what’s going on in the trucking sector. Investigations in multiple states shows that illegals were buying CDL licenses with no testing direct from DMVs, not in a back alley. The havoc that could be done to this country if even a small percentage of them are bad actors is enormous.
CDL mills have been going on a long time. DOT does crack down on them when they find them but take a look at how many trucks and trucking companies are on the road. DOT has instituted some measures to crack down on bad companies like CSA scores and a national data base of personal CSA scores for drivers. Companies are checking these before hiring drivers and you can no longer lie about tickets or whatever because there it is. There are still companies that will ignore it and hire bad drivers, though. Now shippers are starting to check a companies CSA score. If a driver is stopped and gets a ticket for speeding it not only goes on his record but the companies. Some shippers will check a companies CSA score and if it’s low enough won’t use them or will require the trucking company to have higher insurance to make up for it. I drove for one company that lost a contract because it had too many drivers caught speeding, over weight etc and their CSA dropped to the point that the shipper demanded such a high bond that the company couldn’t afford to run the freight. Believe me, if a companies CSA drops that far they are at great risk of Federal DOT walking in at random and doing a full rectal on the trucking company and no one wants that.
Now Dept. of Transportation needs to act to review the testing sites, the issuance of CDL and independently evaluate the competency of each foreign driver awarded a CDL. Then refer any irregularities in testing/issuance to the DoJ for prosecution of testing officials/licence issuing officials and to set severe fines from DoT funds on those States where statutes and regs were ignored. Maybe install Fed monitors for these particularly egregious States if they want to keep ability to issue CDL.
They are supposed to be doing that anyways. The problem is that a CDL is issued by the state not the federal government. My opinion is that a CDL should be a Federal License like a TWIC card issued by a Federal facility for interstate use. States w0uld then be required to honor it for personal vehicle use. If a state wants to issue a CDL for intrastate use the license must still be issued in conjunction with Federal DOT and be clearly stamped “Intrastate Use Only”. Something like this would remove states playing hinky with illegal aliens at the DMV. Illegal aliens should never under any circumstance be given any personal drivers license and if a state wants to do it then it’s only good in that state. They should never get a CDL under any circumstances.
If it is decided that foreign nationals should be allowed in to the country because there “aren’t enough” Americans for a job category They should be held at a minimum the same standard as said Americans if not higher to make sure we only get the best foreign people in those positions. Having ever been in the US unlawfully should be a instant disqualification since that is not a sign of excellence. It is a sign of indifference to following the law.
“an order outlining new guidance to enforce English proficiency requirements for truckers”
Common sense.
The Harris administration’s solution would have been to require all road signs to offer real-time “dial 7 for Punjab.”
The requirement was already on the books but was not enforced. That is a problem Trump is trying to rectify.
I will point out that most people don’t know that there is an international convention on road signs and while the writing might be in different languages the shape and color are harmonized in different geographical areas. That’s why a CDL test includes signs without writing on them just the shape and color. I can travel to Kansas City, Vancouver BC, Mexico City or Aruba and a stop sign looks like a stop sign.
1) revoke all “work permits” issued to hostile foreign invaders [aka “illegal immigrants”] that were processed by the Biden Administration. This would not apply to those who went through the normal, legal immigration process and are here legally. Make the holders of those “work permits” be cleared for legal presence in this country. If they are not here legally, make that period of time where they worked and deprived a legal resident [citizen or otherwise] of a job an aggravating factor for a permanent ban from the country.
2) A review of the records of all licensing authorities in all states who licensed foreign invaders to see if in fact said invaders actually were qualified. If, like in California, they were given licenses without proper qualification, any Federal funds to the licensing authority’s governing body should be suspended until they satisfy inspectors that they are following proper procedure.
Subotai Bahadur
Where are all of the La Raza types who usually jump in front of the cameras to defend “migrants”? This accident just crushed “it’s only “Hispanic” ” screams.
Here’s a thought. India is not playing ball on Tariffs and is doubling down on its ties with Russia. There is also BRICS. Seems to me we should kick out all Indian students, ban then from H series visas, extend tariffs to services like outsourcing, and shutoff all immigration. They want to be in the russian sphere. Fine. Let russia take the indians.
If a DMV staffer issues a CDL to someone (foreigner or US citizen alike) who is obviously impaired, has insufficient command of spoken and written English, can’t identify ALL key road signs,
AND that unqualified driver is responsible for an accident with significant property damage or human injuries,
THEN the staffer should be subject to the SAME fines, suits for damages, and/or imprisonment as the unqualified driver.
AND, if the staffer can provide evidence they were ordered/pressured by a supervisor to issue the license, then the supervisor should ALSO be subject to the same consequences.
I get the timing – people are outraged, and there’s a tenuous connection between the visas and this guy.
But, honestly, anything related to visas wouldn’t have stopped this tragedy. The guy was here illegally.
But, the one thing that would affect not only this situation but the visa program, as well, is to harden enforcement of those requirements for driving. Go after the folks selling CDLs* or looking the other way on failures. Sanction states letting people get away with it. Actually hold the people committing the wrongdoing accountable.
(* The Truck Master commercials were prominent on tv when I was in pilot training, and someone posted the 800 number for them on our whiteboard in the flight room. We kept it up as a running jab the entire time, and others put it up on their boards after we graduated. If we’d known you could just buy a CDL, who knows who might have dropped out?)