PRESIDENT Donald Trump's administration on Thursday (21) abruptly stopped issuing US visas for truck drivers after a fatal crash earlier this month involving an Indian immigrant drew national attention.
Three people died on a highway in Florida when Harjinder Singh made an illegal U-turn on August 12. Singh allegedly entered the US illegally from Mexico and failed an English examination after the crash, federal officials said.
"Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers," secretary of state Marco Rubio wrote on X.
"The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," he wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Harjinder’s brother Harneet Singh, 25, an illegal immigrant, after the 18-wheeler he was a passenger made the illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike.
The accident made headlines and was highlighted by officials in Florida, controlled by Trump's Republican Party, with the lieutenant governor flying to California to extradite Singh personally alongside immigration agents on Thursday.
Singh received his commercial license in California and also lived in the West Coast state, run by the Democratic Party and which opposes Trump's crackdown on immigration.
"This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures," transportation secretary Sean Duffy said.
California governor Gavin Newsom's office said the federal government under Trump had issued a work permit to Singh, who sought asylum, and that California had cooperated in extraditing him.
Even before the crash, Republican lawmakers have been taking aim at foreign truckers, pointing to a rising number of accidents without providing evidence of a direct link to immigrants. In June, Duffy issued a directive that truck drivers must speak English.
Truck drivers have long been required to pass tests that include basic English proficiency, but in 2016 under former president Barack Obama, authorities were told not to take truckers off the road solely on account of language deficiencies.
The number of foreign-born truck drivers in the US more than doubled between 2000 and 2021 to 720,000, according to federal statistics.
Foreign-born drivers now make up 18 per cent of the industry - in line with the US labour market as a whole. More than half of the foreign-born drivers come from Latin America with sizable numbers in recent years from India and Eastern European nations, especially Ukraine, according to industry groups. The influx of foreign drivers has come in response to demand.
A study earlier this year by the financial company altLine said the United States faced a shortage of 24,000 truck drivers, costing the freight industry $95.5 million per week as goods go undelivered.
