A group of Republican legislators is pushing legislation that would allow states to grant licenses to migrants who want to drive 18-wheeler trucks.
The bill was introduced just as deputies for President Donald Trump are forcing down the huge population of President Joe Biden’s migrant truck drivers who have slashed wages for American truckers and their families.
The bill is led by Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC) and is touted as a way to exclude foreign truck drivers from U.S. roads.
But the text explicitly allows state officials to award Commercial Drivers Licenses (CDLs) to migrants approved by a federal Secretary of State:
Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary, the State may issue a commercial driver’s license to an individual who operates or will operate a commercial motor vehicle and is domiciled in a foreign jurisdiction, if … the individual possesses a visa determined by the Secretary to be directly connected [emphasis added] to a legitimate, employment-based reason to hold a commercial driver’s license.
A press statement from Rouzer said, “The Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act” is a curb on foreign CDLs:
This legislation ensures only individuals with lawful immigration status and a legitimate reason to operate commercial vehicles in the U.S. are entrusted with CDLs. We must never, under any circumstance, jeopardize public safety by allowing those here illegally to get behind the wheel of a big rig.
The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Dusty Johnson (D-SD), Eric Crawford (R-AR), Diana Harshbarger (R-TN), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Troy Hehls (R-TX), Mike Ezell (R-MS), James Baird (R-IN), Chuck Edwards (R-NC), and Mike Bost (R-IL).
Advocates for truckers are denouncing the Rouzer bill.
“That’s our next big fight,” said Ike Stephens, the host of the Bonehead Truckers show, adding:
This basically says we’re allowing [foreign] truck drivers who have a visa to be a truck driver here …. This bill has got to go. So what do we do about it?…. Well, first of all, we call our Representatives, we email them, we tweet them on X. … We annoy the crap out of them until they get the idea that truck drivers, American truck drivers, do not support this, and the reason why is because this does not help our safety and it does not help our industry.
We, the American Truck drivers, are the ones who will be the victim of this, because people that come into this country and become a truck driver, they’re taking American jobs.
Breitbart News asked Rouzer’s office about Stephens’ objection, and it replied:
This bill, developed directly with the Trump Administration, would eliminate nearly 98% of Non-Domiciled CDL issuance moving forward (of the estimated 200,000 Non-Domiciled CDL drivers out there, approximately 195,000 would have been ineligible under this legislation). Illegal immigrants, including those who have attained work authorizations from states, would be ineligible under this legislation.
The bill does not bar the award of CDLs to several categories of visa migrants: “Only those with H2A, H2B, and E2 visas would be eligible under this legislation, leaving approximately only 5,000 non-domicile drivers nationwide.”
There is no annual cap on the number of H-2A agriculture-related seasonal visas, which now allow foreign truckers to transport products from fields to processing centers. The current cap set by Congress on H-2B seasonal workers is roughly 130,000.
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There is no cap on E-2 investor visas, which are used by foreign truckers who want to work in the United States. Under Biden, many foreigners used B-1/B-2 tourist visas to legally enter the country before becoming truckers.
Biden and his deputies admitted roughly 10 million migrants through the southern border, plus millions more via the nation’s airports.
Many of the border migrants and airport migrants have used lax state laws to get CDLs and earn money for their at-home families in India, Mexico, Eastern Europe, and Africa. These wire-transfer migrants have helped to slash wages for American truckers and their families, to gum up U.S. transport networks, and kill at least 12 people on U.S. roads.
Trump’s Department of Transportation has revived the enforcement of long-standing regulations and is pulling many thousands of migrant drovers off the highways.
The sudden enforcement of the regulation is having a large impact on the many companies that employ cheap migrants, and is raising per-mile rates for some American drivers in the “spot” delivery market.
Retailers claim that wage gains for drivers will push up inflation. But the increased costs will likely be offset by American truckers’ ability to cut the heavy costs imposed by the growing number of trucking accidents, delays, fraud, crimes, deaths, and cargo thefts enabled by foreign operators in the United States.
The federal enforcement is forcing retailers and brokers to hire professional American drivers who have a good record for safety, honesty, and on-time delivery:
But many states ignore the flood of dangerous illegal-migrant drivers on their highways, likely at the behest of trucking companies and major retailers, such as Amazon and Walmart
Trump’s revival of the American trucking sector is likely to face much opposition from establishment lobbies, partly because wage gains for drivers also mean lower stock prices for investors.
Rouzer’s website says: “I encourage the citizens of North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District to send me their opinions, ideas, suggestions, and comments regarding the issues you find most important. Below, please find the best ways to contact me and my staff.”
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