Truck drivers say ‘racism’ behind Trump administration’s license restrictions on immigrants

Nearly 200,000 US truck drivers are at risk of losing their commercial driver’s licenses after the US Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a new rule that disqualifies many foreign-born truck drivers from getting or renewing their licenses.

Tens of thousands of immigrant drivers are stuck in a limbo after the rule took effect in March, and lawsuits challenging the rule are still being reviewed by federal courts.

The rule restricts licenses to immigrants who have specific employment authorization statuses, disqualifying those with other authorizations, including asylum seekers, refugees and those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) status.

The rule has shaken immigrant drivers who have spent years dedicated to the industry.

Sarabjeet Singh, a truck driver from India who has workedin central California for the past 12 years, said he attempted to renew his license last month when it expired but was turned away.

Kavita Patel, Singh’s wife, said the loss of his license has been devastating for their whole family.

“This not only affected us financially, but this is a huge burden mentally, emotionally, physically,” she said. “People think you can just find another job, but your entire skill set [and] experience has been built around driving this big rig.”

“It’s kind of a fear and helplessness that comes from waking up one day and realizing, ‘Oh, guess what, your career that you built is suddenly all gone in one night,’” she added.

A spokesperson for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration deferred comment to a press release on the policy. They denied the policy change toward immigrants is racist.

In a press release on the new rule, the US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said that licenses are “being issued to dangerous foreign drivers – often times illegally”.

“This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it,” he said.

Duffy cited five fatal accidents involving immigrant truck drivers to justify the rule, though these accidents comprised just 0.31% of all large-truck fatal accidents in the US for the first half of 2025. A fifth of truck drivers involved in fatal accidents were driving without a commercial license.

In April 2026, a non-domicile truck driver with Daca immigration status confronted Duffy at an event, demanding to know why Daca recipients were being made ineligible to hold commercial drivers licenses. Duffy claimed “well, it shouldn’t” when asked why Daca holders are now prevented from having a license. A spokesperson for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) claimed he misheard the driver and misspoke.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made similar claims that the increasing number of immigrant truck drivers posed a safety threat and was “undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers”, after the state department abruptly announced it would stop issuing work visas for commercial truck drivers last August.

Critics of the rule note that the Trump administration has provided no data to substantiate claims that foreign commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders pose a specific safety threat. About 5,200 large trucks were involved in fatal accidents in 2024, a 3% decrease from the previous year, according to the National Safety Council.

“While DOT premised its rule on safety, its own data indicated that the CDL holders excluded by the rule (immigrant drivers) were involved in fatal crashes at a lower rate than CDL holders who are not excluded, meaning the rule would worsen, and not improve, safety,” wrote the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, in a letter to Congress in March.

The Trump administration’s framing of immigrant truck drivers has started to shape public perception: many of the public comments made in support of the rule cite or mention “illegal” immigrants, despite the rule affecting immigrants with legal work authorization in the US.

Leaders in Democratic-led states like New York have tried to refuse the DOT’s demand to revoke CDLs from certain drivers, but the DOT has threatened to withhold federal transportation funding in response.

Immigrant truck drivers say the rule unfairly affects those who are in the country, obtained their commercial licenses legally and have maintained clean driving records.

The targeting predates the Trump administration’s new rule. Last April, Arkansas’s governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed into law an English proficiency requirement for truck drivers.

Ignacio Romero, who has worked as a truck driver in California for 37 years, said there is a broader mover targeting foreign and drivers of color, likely stemming from the influx of immigrant truck drivers entering the industry in recent years. From 2000 to 2021, foreign-born truck drivers in the US increased from 316,000 to more than 720,000 drivers.

“I experienced a lot of racism throughout my 37 years of driving. We are constantly being profiled. I’ve been stopped three times this year,” said Romero. “I believe the sentiment for our safety is right, but … let’s focus on the ones involved. Why just put a general blanket statement and punish 200,000 for the actual five drivers [who were in accidents]?”

He added, “I’ve always been suspicious that it was more racism, more blanket statements than holding the individuals involved in those events accountable,”

The rule also affects truck drivers who are transporting goods from across the border. Julio Ortiz, a truck driver based out of Mexico, said the rule is unfair as someone who has traveled frequently in and out of the US.

“I believe it’s a grave error to place such an obstacle in the path of people who simply wish to work honestly,” Ortiz said.

Narinder Johal, a truck driver based in California for nearly 30 years, argued the truck drivers who violate the laws and obtain illegal licenses are not the ones affected by the rule change.

“The people who were working, paying their taxes, fulfilling all the rules and regulations, what the government issued, they’re off the road right now,” said Johal.

Billy Randel, a truck driver based in New York for decades and chief organizer of Truckers Movement for Justice, argued that changes to trucking industry has hurt all truck drivers, including US citizens. All truck drivers have faced lower wages and worse working conditions in recent decades for the sake of profit, yet the animosity is targeted at immigrants, he said.

“They’re focused on the worker who speaks little, if any, English, who came here looking for a better life,” said Randel. “They forgot their ancestors did the same thing.”

The Guardian wp:paragraph