U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy certainly has been far busier than his predecessor (Pete “Racist Roads” Buttigieg), doing work essential to both the safety and prosperity of Americans.
Duffy has recently threatened several states (namely California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota) with a threat of fines if they fail to curb the fraudulent issuing of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to illegal immigrants (i.e., “non-domiciled drivers). Thousands of CDLs have already been revoked.
Now trucking schools are being taught a valuable lesson by the Trump DOT team.
Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving programs listed nationwide by the government may be forced to close if they lose their students after a review by the federal Transportation Department found they may not be complying with minimum requirements.The Transportation Department said Monday that it plans to revoke the certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply with training requirements in the next 30 days. The targeted schools must notify students that their certification is in jeopardy. Another 4,500 schools are being warned they may face similar action.Schools that lose certification will no longer be able to issue the certificates showing a driver completed training that’s required to get a license, so students are likely to abandon those schools. It’s not clear how many of those schools have been actively teaching students.
Duffy also pushed more robust restrictions on the types of immigrants who could get CDLs. Unfortunately, a federal judge put that on hold and critics argue essentially that not enough Americans have died in horrific crashes to justify the new rules.
The DOT has also proposed significant new restrictions on which immigrants can get a CDL, but a federal appeals court put those rules on hold last month. That push for tougher regulations coincided with a series of deadly crashes involving foreign-born truckers — including a fatal crash in Florida in August that killed three people.Secretary Duffy argues that the restrictions are urgently needed because there are too many foreign-born truckers who don’t know the rules of the road and don’t speak English proficiently.But the administration’s critics argue that there’s no data to support this claim, despite a handful of high-profile crashes that have garnered significant attention from conservative media. They say the push for tougher regulations amounts to an immigration crackdown by another name.
But the DOT isn’t the only agency involved in this crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is auditing trucking firms in California owned by immigrants to verify the status of their drivers and whether they are qualified to hold a CDL.
Department of Homeland Security agents are conducting aggressive workplace audits across Northern and Central California trucking companies, with a heavy focus on Punjabi-owned carriers, according to a detailed account aired November 28 on Punjab Radio USA.Harpreet Thera, owner of a mid-sized fleet operating since 1997, told the station that DHS served him with a Notice of Inspection while he was at a dentist appointment in Sacramento. Agents first went to his home, then called his cellphone and identified his exact location before meeting him in a parking lot to hand-deliver the summons.The notice gave Thera three days to produce I-9 employment eligibility forms for every current and former employee going back two years – more than 100 records in total. Thera, who uses BBSI for payroll and runs 100% W-2 drivers to comply with California’s AB5 law, submitted the documents the same day.DHS then escalated the audit: agents selected 15 employees – including U.S. citizens, green card holders and work-permit drivers – for individual interviews and requested their personal phone numbers. Agents told Thera they may conduct the interviews in person.
Something tells me the West is going to get even wilder…for illegal immigrants. And that’s a good thing.`
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