The Department of Homeland Security on Monday revealed it had arrested more than 1,200 CDL holders without legal status in the country. DHS also shared details on Operation Guardian, a 15-state law enforcement blitz targeting commercial trucking.
Speaking from Melton Truck Lines' Catoosa, Oklahoma, location, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin blasted "sanctuary states" like California and New York for refusing to revoke wrongly-issued CDLs.
"Just in this operation once again we find a CDL driver that was issued a driver's license in California, and he came in across the Mexico border from India and he gave his first name and the last name was 'No Name Given,'" said Mullin. "How is that even possible? How are you able to get any type of ID and say 'No Name Given,' much less drive a semi on the road and putting the lives of people around you at risk. It’s frustrating."
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy manual allows for the use of "No Name Given," on licenses, and that agency is part of DHS.
[Related: How states can issue CDLs to drivers that don't even give a last name]
Still, Mullin said New York and California created a "safe haven" for "criminal activity," and that DHS has to "fight these sanctuary states constantly."
But Mullin had praise for legitimate trucking enterprises like Melton.
“You see companies like Melton Trucking, a reputable company, a company that does things the right way," said Mullin, "and then you see other trucking companies out there that want to do everything they can to create disruption in the industry, hire illegals, run down the rates of actual legal drivers. They don’t actually pay the insurance. You take them off the road, they simply change the names on the side of the truck, the DOT numbers, and you see them back on the road the next day. They actually wreak havoc on companies that do it right."
Mullin said DHS' mission included "a lot more than just taking CDL drivers off the road," and that the department had located "2,168 known terrorists," some of whom went on to get CDLs.
[Related: Who is vetting 'wanted terrorist' CDL drivers?]
Russ Hott, who oversees the Public Safety Partnership Division at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also praised trucking as "the backbone for America’s critical infrastructure."
But like Mullin, Hott saw a thread of "foreign trucking companies that have taken advantage and exploited regulatory loopholes" as creating problems.
Between January 2025 and October 31, 2026, "ICE conducted over 4,100 CDL operations resulting in the arrest of 1,243 CDL holders," with 710 of those CDL holders arrested in Oklahoma, said Hott.
“Our focus on arresting individual CDL drivers has been on final orders of removal," said Hott. "These are individuals that had their day in court, who had due process and had their opportunity to present additional evidence. They were ordered removed and refused to go."
DHS said the CDL drivers arrested had often committed "egregious crimes," including drug trafficking, human trafficking, theft, and child abuse. One truck stopped had six passengers, one of whom was a minor female while other occupants had human trafficking convictions.
Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton said that with 14 months of cracking down on immigration enforcement in trucking, he's beginning to understand how the non-compliant trucking networks work.
“As soon as our troopers would show up on location at one of our ports of entry and begin a special emphasis looking for illegal truck drivers -- our intel analysts would immediately start seeing social media posts from the east and west coast telling each other that, 'hey Oklahoma is back at it again, divert,'" said Tipton.
Tipton then got 14 other states to launch the "same type of enforcement at the same time" to prevent non-compliant carriers from driving around Oklahoma.
The results of the end of Operation Guardian was 230 arrests, with 40 of those going to CDL holders.
Individuals arrested came from the following countries: Armenia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Peru, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
