Trump administration pausing issuance of visas for foreign truck drivers, Rubio says
President Trump’s administration is pausing all issuance of worker visas for foreign truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, arguing the growing number of international, commercial operators is putting the lives of Americans in danger.
“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. 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 said in a Thursday post on social platform X.
Rubio’s announcement comes days after Harjinder Singh, a truck driver, was accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed people about 50 miles north of West Palm Beach, Fla. The Department of Homeland Security said this week that Singh, who was arrested for three counts of vehicular homicide, was in the U.S. illegally.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Tuesday that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration launched an investigation into the deadly Florida highway crash.
Trump penned an executive order in late April requiring all commercial truck drivers operating in the U.S. to be proficient in English. The president designated English as the country’s official language in an executive order in March.
“They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers,” the White House said in the order at the time. “Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”
Foreign truckers in the U.S. are usually working on H-2B visas.
On Thursday, the State Department confirmed it is vetting more than 55 million U.S. visa holders for possible deportable infractions, including criminal activity, visa overstays and engagement in any form of "terrorist activity.”
The State Department said last week it would pause all visas for visitors from the Gaza Strip as it conducts a “full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days.”