The Department of State announced it was pausing issuance of work visas to commercial truck drivers in the United States. That's according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with the news delivered via the X platform late Thursday, August 22.
"The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," Rubio tweeted Thursday evening. "Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers."
The move comes after announcement of a Trump administration review of all visa holders in the United and amid the ongoing Trump Department of Transportation review of non-domiciled CDLs, issued by states to an individual that doesn't live in that state, including foreign-domiciled drivers. The review has risen in prominence this week in the wake of the deadly accident in Florida, which revealed the truck's driver held a California-issued non-domiciled CDL. The spotlight on English Language Proficiency (ELP), too, grew brighter with that operator's failure of new ELP test procedures in the wake of the crash.
[Related: Ban non-domiciled CDLs for foreign drivers? Truckers weigh in]
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) launched an investigation focusing on the driver, Harjinder Singh, and the now-shut-down White Hawk Carriers Inc. company that employed him. Likewise, Duffy pointed the finger at the states of Washington and California for their failures in the commercial licensure of Singh, as well as New Mexico for failure to enforce ELP requirements (back in the out of service criteria as of late June).
“If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us. This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures," said Duffy, as previously reported.
Other highway tragedies have featured prominently in news throughout the year and prior. As reported in Overdrive sister publication CCJ, a loaded truck in May struck four vehicles from behind that were stopped for a red light in the southbound lane of Highway 43 at the intersection of South Industrial Park Drive in Thomasville, Alabama. The driver of the truck and another man off-duty inside the cab were in the U.S. with work visas and neither spoke English. Two people died in that wreck.
[Related: 'Illegal alien' driver's fleet shut down after deadly Florida crash]
