Hundreds of thousands of truck drivers could be removed from American roads as a result of the Trump administration’s new aggressive enforcement and safety campaign.
President Donald Trump on Jan. 24 drew new attention to his administration’s crackdown by highlighting the catastrophic injuries suffered by young Dalilah Coleman, who was seriously injured when the car she was riding in was struck by a foreign-born truck driver traveling at high speed through a construction zone in California.
Coleman, who was five at the time, attended the State of the Union address on February 24 as a guest of Trump, who noted that she suffered a traumatic brain injury and cerebral palsy as a result of the crash.
“Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs,” Trump said during his speech. “That’s why tonight I’m calling on Congress to pass what we will call the ‘Dalilah Act,’ which would prohibit any state from issuing commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.”
According to federal officials, the truck driver who struck her family’s car entered the United States from Mexico in 2022, was released by the Biden administration and eventually obtained a commercial driver’s license (CDL) from California.
As with regular driver’s licenses, states can issue CDLs to truck drivers even if they do not have legal permission to live in the country. The White House recently warned states to stop issuing CDLs to unvetted foreigners, with the exception of Canadian and Mexican truck drivers who routinely cross the border for deliveries.
Who drives America’s trucks?
There are approximately 3.5 million licensed truck drivers in the United States, from bus drivers to RV van drivers and over-the-road semi-trailer owners.
The Department of Transportation has also encouraged states, which oversee CDLs and trucking, to more aggressively enforce existing laws requiring drivers’ English proficiency.
Earlier this month, federal inspectors proposed closing more than 550 trucking schools after concluding they were largely sham or unqualified operations. Federal officials say there are at least 194,000 licensed motor carriers that could be affected by the crackdown on non-U.S. drivers.
The 37,000-member trade group American Trucking Associations has backed Trump’s efforts, arguing that better trucking enforcement and stricter regulations will make roads safer for all drivers. CDL holders are subject to strict hour limits while driving and must undergo periodic medical checkups to ensure they can drive safely.
“We support President Trump’s efforts to ensure that only properly trained, fully qualified and English-speaking drivers are behind the wheel of 80,000-pound commercial motor vehicles,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement. “We stand ready to work with the Administration and Congress to advance policies that raise standards and keep our highways safe.”
Crackdown on immigrant CDL holders
The law, which Trump proposed on Jan. 24, would complement a series of regulatory and enforcement changes being implemented by the federal Department of Transportation, which oversees motor carriers.
Although CDLs are generally governed by federal law and regulations, they are issued by states. Drivers and trucking schools found holes in the existing system that allowed some noncitizens to obtain CDLs without background checks on their driving records in their home states, federal officials said. In other cases, truck drivers illegally obtained Mexican truck driver’s licenses and then used them to qualify for reciprocal U.S. CDLs.
Federal officials last summer ordered a temporary halt to the issuance of CDLs to foreign-born truck drivers.
“For far too long, America has allowed dangerous foreign drivers to abuse our truck licensing systems, wreaking havoc on our roadways. This safety gap ends today,” Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy said in a statement.
Federal officials said at least 17 fatal crashes and 30 deaths in 2025 were caused by truck drivers who are now ineligible for a CDL under the new rules, which would especially impact drivers from countries other than Mexico or Canada, whose truck drivers often operate under a special cross-border system.
According to federal statistics, U.S. citizen CDL or green card holders were linked to more than 85,000 injuries and 4,700 fatalities last year.
Sikhs critical of the new approach
Critics of the president’s actions say they are aimed at the wrong target: Noncitizen CDL holders were responsible for less than 2% of all large truck crashes nationwide last year, while they accounted for nearly 4% of all CDL holders, according to federal regulatory filings.
Among the strongest critics of the measures are Indian-born Sikhs, who make up about 150,000 members of the trucking community, according to regulatory data. Tens of thousands of Sikhs sought asylum in the United States during Biden’s presidency, many of them crossing the Mexican border without prior permission.
In testimony from federal regulators, some critics also worried that the crackdown on foreign drivers would cause them to lose their jobs and homes overnight — many truck drivers live in their semis — while increasing freight costs for American consumers.
The White House has repeatedly identified Sikh truck drivers as a cause for concern, including California-licensed truck driver Harjinder Singh, who is accused of causing a fatal crash on Aug. 12, 2025, in Florida that killed three people. Federal officials said in a social media post that Singh is an illegal immigrant who does not speak English well enough to have obtained the California CDL he possessed.
The US-based Sikhs For Justice group has donated $100,000 to the victims of the accident Singh allegedly caused. The group has also proposed donating $1 billion to Trump’s Institute for Peace as a condition for holding a referendum on carving out a homeland for Sikhs in parts of India.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thousands of truck drivers targeted by Trump could lose their licenses
Reporting by Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY/USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
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