The Wyoming Highway Patrol and the state’s largest advocate for truckers said Friday that they support the federal government’s sudden suspension of immigrant worker visas for commercial truck drivers.
The Trump Administration paused the issuance of work visas for truckers on Thursday.
The head of the Wyoming Highway Patrol said it’s a good move, if it’s being used to vet truckers better for their skills and regard for safety. The Wyoming Trucking Association supports the policy change.
The Wyoming Immigration Advocacy Project’s leader, however, said it misses the mark – since there are recent signs of trucking companies overworking or otherwise taking advantage of immigrant truck drivers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement Thursday on X, formerly Twitter.
“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers,” wrote Rubio. “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.”
The announcement follows an Aug. 12 commercial vehicle crash in Florida, for which a truck driver from India has since been charged in the deaths of three people.
The Florida Highway Patrol said the driver, Harjinder Singh, entered the country illegally through the Southern border in 2018 and obtained a commercial driver’s license in California.
Wyoming Highway Patrol Support
Col. Tim Cameron, administrator of the Wyoming Highway Patrol, told Cowboy State Daily on Friday he supports the idea of a pause to improve vetting of truckers.
“I certainly understand and concur with the pausing, to ensure that policy and processes are in place,” he said, “to prevent these events from taking place to ensure the safety of our roadways.”
Cameron referenced the Florida incident as an occasion where the processes in place either failed or people failed to adhere to them.
The federal government rejected Singh’s initial bid for a work permit on Sept. 14, 2020, Fox News reported.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security told the outlet that the Biden administration then issued Singh a work permit on June 9, 2021.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office countered, saying the Trump administration reauthorized the permit on April 9 of this year.
Cameron said there may be other serious crashes where vetting is a potential issue, “but certainly this crash in Florida, on the Florida interstate – I think there’s outrage regarding this due to a combination of things.”
It’s clear the driver lacks English language proficiency, but that may not have been a factor as the “no U-turn” sign bore a clear universal symbol, said Cameron. But the crash bears indicators that Singh had “a total disregard, a wanton disregard, for the law,” he added.
The colonel touted commercial truck drivers in general as “a group of consummate, professional drivers. They move America every day – specifically in Wyoming and across our interstates.
Bigger Than That
Rosie Read, founder of the Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project, told Cowboy State Daily the policy change overlooks other major hazard factors while making a large public example of the slim percentage of non-citizen truckers.
A spokesperson for the State Department told Newsweek on Thursday that the pause is for applicants who wish to operate commercial trucks with H-2B, E-2 and EB-3 visa classifications.
Those are for temporary non-agriculture workers, treaty traders and investors, and skilled workers seeking permanent residency, respectively.
Foreign truckers in the U.S. are usually working on H-2B visas, says truckinginfo.com.
The Department of Homeland Security made around 130,000 H-2B visas available for fiscal year 2024, about 1,000 of those went to heavy-duty truck drivers, landline media reported.
That's across an industry of 3.5 million truckers total.
H-2B visas often last for one year, but people can renew them for up to three years before the government mandates a “resetting” hiatus.
On the one hand, said Read, Rubio’s maneuver doesn’t help ease what many (including Wyoming truckers) call a trucker shortage.
On the other hand, it doesn’t make a huge dent in trucker availability either.
“It makes a big splash in the news and it sounds like something is being done to make the roads safer,” said Read. “But when you look at the numbers, it’s a really, really small group of people to sort of attack, or go after, when your main concern is safety on the roads.”
One way the federal government could better target safety concerns, she said, is to go after unscrupulous trucking companies that overwork immigrant drivers.
A Cuban trucker on June 28 reportedly fell asleep at the wheel and rear-ended a pickup, killing five people. Investigators are now eyeing the driver’s employer for years of service violations – including some pertaining to fatigue, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
English Proficiency
Read voiced concerns with another, related Trump policy change.
The president on April 28 revived a federal rule by which highway inspectors can pull non-English proficient truckers from the roads. The rule was in place for years prior to 2016, when the Obama administration suspended it.
Wyoming is enforcing that rule.
“Which I don’t think is a bad idea, like on paper, it’s just, you have to be vigilant about uneven enforcement,” said Read, “and make sure there aren’t biases that enter in those assessments.”
And the combination of this and the other new measures against foreign truckers could exacerbate the shortage, she added.
Immigrants may be drawn to trucking because it yields relatively good wages for them, she noted.
“The goal for many immigrants who come here is to earn a living,” said Read. “And be able to support their families and chase that American dream they’ve heard about.”
Trucking Lobby
Kevin Hawley, president and CEO of the Wyoming Trucking Association, said his group supports the pause – and is rooting for more policy changes.
“That accident in Florida was abhorrent and should never have happened,” said Hawley in a Friday email. “We support Transportation’s Secretary (Sean) Duffy’s decision to launch an investigation.”
No industry is immune to bad actors, but the trucking industry needs meaningful action right now, Hawley added.
In his group’s view, it is “imperative” that commercial truck driver meet all federal requirements currently in regulation to obtain a commercial driver’s license, and motor carriers comply with all regulations.
“We’d like to see (the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) conduct more audits and compliance reviews at the carrier level,” he wrote.
The Wyoming group also calls on FMCSA to strengthen the registration system to prevent people from stealing Department of Transportation authorizing numbers and to ensure that any carrier the DOT shuts down for non-compliance or safety reasons cannot get another DOT number and continue operating “like nothing has changed.”
“This is a massive issue that is frustrating many of us – ‘chameleon carriers,’” Hawley added.
Hawley called for tougher enforcement of the English-proficiency rule, the confirmation of FMCSA administrator nominee Derek Barrs, an audit of how states issue CDLs and non-domiciled (non-citizen) CDLs, and enforcement of “cabotage” or domestic carrier law violations.
The FMCSA is investigating the New Mexico state police for allegedly failing to conduct an English language proficiency test July 3, when Singh was pulled over for speeding.
Wyoming Delegation
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman and U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, both Republicans representing Wyoming in Congress, voiced support of the Trump pause on Friday.
Lummis said the move will protect American truckers and drivers on the road, and pointed to Newsom’s “reckless sanctuary policies” as driving wrecks like the one in Florida.
“The American people should not have to worry about illegal and unqualified foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailers on our roads,” she said.
Hageman agreed, saying federal immigration policy has failed to enforce essential safeguards that on the highways and “uphold the integrity of the trucking industry.”
Hageman introduced a federal bill in May, aimed at codifying the English language proficiency rule into federal law.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
