Officials say ICE agents are currently screening commercial truck drivers at weigh stations to check their work performance and English proficiency.
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The Trump administration has dispatched immigration officials to truck driver safety and weight inspection stations across the United States, citing a series of fatal crashes caused by improperly licensed truck drivers.
States have already revoked more than 28,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to people who do not have legal permission to live and work in the country, federal officials said. Now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are helping determine whether truck drivers have work or residence permits and meet long-standing regulations that require English proficiency.
The Trump administration cited multiple fatal crashes caused by improperly licensed drivers as justification for the new initiative. On July 1, a Pennsylvania state trooper was struck and killed by a truck driven by a Haitian man, and federal authorities said the man was working illegally. President Trump also singled out young truck accident victim Dalila Coleman in his State of the Union address on February 24, saying she was hit by an improperly licensed driver.
“My administration is determined to rid the trucking industry of unvetted and unqualified foreign drivers who do not follow the rules of the road,” Dana Almeida, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Transportation, told USA TODAY. “We will use every tool at our disposal to protect our roads and ensure the safety of American families and truckers.”
Some immigrant rights groups say tougher enforcement of truckers would cost consumers more if thousands of drivers were taken off the roads, and that tougher enforcement risks racial profiling.
Homeland Security officials cited operational security in refusing to release additional details about where ICE agents work with state truck inspectors and how many are assigned.
Border Czar Tom Homan said Democratic-run states continue to deny access to state-controlled driver license data. Some states issue driver’s licenses, including commercial licenses, to people who do not have legal permission to reside in the United States.
“There are a lot of people like this, and we’re looking for them every day,” Homan told Fox News on July 7. “We have a lot of people that we’re looking for. In some states, we’re actually working at weigh stations with police officers, trying to catch them as they come.”
Homan’s comments come a week after Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira was hit by a truck driven by Michael Bonn. Bong entered the United States in 2024 and applied for Temporary Protected Status as a Haitian refugee, but did not receive it, DHS said. Vonn nevertheless obtained a commercial driver’s license in Massachusetts, federal officials said. Pahira’s funeral was held on July 8th.
Vonn faces charges of vehicular homicide and manslaughter in Pennsylvania. Pahira’s death followed other high-profile fatal crashes involving so-called “domiciled” truck drivers who had commercial licenses without authorization to work in the United States.
On July 5, a University of Massachusetts student was killed when a truck driver plowed into the back of his car on Interstate 71 in Ohio. DOT officials said the truck driver could not speak or read English, and officers had to use Google Translate to communicate with him.
And last August, Harjinder Singh, a California-licensed truck driver, was accused of making an illegal U-turn and colliding with a minivan in Florida, causing a fatal crash. Federal authorities said in a social media post that they called him an “illegal immigrant” who failed a street-based English proficiency test and should not have gotten a license.
Federal authorities are targeting truck drivers licensed from states with weak oversight, especially when it comes to speaking and reading English. The Obama administration suspended enforcement of long-standing English proficiency rules in 2016, but the Trump administration reversed that decision last summer.
