There have been several high-profile, deadly crashes in recent months involving semi-trucks being driven by foreign nationals and/or operated by shady operators whose ownership is a layer of shell companies. The recent video of an illegal alien from India causing a fatal wreck when performing an illegal U-turn has received a great deal of attention. The Trump administration is cracking down, especially as it applies to aliens who are not licensed to operate these vehicles. The crackdown is revealing that a great many of these drivers are in the country illegally.
The enforcement crackdown also reveals that the problem is being exacerbated by blue states that are extending commercial driver’s license (“CDLs”
to foreign nationals who don’t speak English or know U.S. traffic laws. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement just arrested an illegal alien who was provided a CDL in New York under the name, “NO NAME GIVEN.”
Craig Fuller is a former trucking and logistics executive who now operates Freightwaves, a publication dedicated to those industries. After Donald Trump’s election in November, Mr. Fuller was thought to be a candidate for Transportation Secretary, and although he didn’t get that job, Fuller has the ear of all major players in the trucking and logistics industries.
In recent days, Mr. Fuller and Freightwaves have been documenting a massive federal effort, ”The Compliance Crunch,” to go after drivers operating illegally. This is obviously also disruptive to those enterprises who put unskilled and illegal drivers behind the wheel of semi-trucks.
With immigration authorities and regulatory agencies targeting any trucks on the road in violation of federal regulations, massive fraud is being revealed, including:
• Carriers bring foreign truck drivers in on tourist visas, have them drive for 90 days, at which time they leave and are replaced by another driver on the 90-day cycle. Per Craig Fuller, “Entire fleet business models [are] built around this.”
• Eastern European drivers are being brought in by organized crime syndicates from their home countries, and operating with little understanding or respect for US laws.
• Because of the crackdown, alien truckers are starting to ditch their trucks along highways, leaving them for the trucks’ owners to come pick up.
• ICE and cooperating police agencies are aggressively patrolling truck stops.
• Carriers that rely on cheap foreign truck drivers are reporting massive absenteeism. Per Mr. Fuller, “This is going to destroy entire business models. Trucking companies only survive through cashflows of running freight. They are toast if this goes on.”
• Truck stop parking lots are suddenly much emptier than normal.
• ICE is also showing up at businesses where shipments are loaded and unloaded, verifying that the truckers have legitimated CDLs. Shippers therefore are becoming proactive in ensuring that only legal drivers are backing up to their warehouse docks, and refusing to load or receive shipments from non-compliant drivers.
• Trucking companies and freight brokers are being advised by legal counsel to immediately cease working with non-US domiciled truck drivers and those who lack a legal United States CDL. Mr. Fuller quotes one of them as telling him, “Plaintiff attorneys will scorch any broker or carrier for hiring an illegitimate driver.”
• Insurance companies are likely to refuse to provide insurance going forward for companies unless they prohibit the hiring of truck drivers lacking US-domiciled CDLs.
As to this last point, Craig Fuller states that “It’s all over” in regards to the business practice of employing illegal aliens and unqualified foreigners to drive semi-trucks on American roads.
“Trucking advised to audit all drivers to limit CDL liability” [Freightwaves – 10/09/2025]
Trucking and logistics companies should be taking immediate steps to mitigate increased exposure to drivers with non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses – including an audit of all existing employee or contract drivers, a regulations expert advises.
That advice, included in a legal alert by Greg Reed, a partner at Hanson Bridgett LLP, comes in the wake of an emergency rule issued in September by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration overhauling who is eligible for a non-domiciled CDL.
In the alert, Reed points out that if an accident were to occur, plaintiffs’ attorneys would likely argue that logistics and trucking companies are on notice that non-domiciled CDLs may be operating unlawfully and are insufficiently qualified.
It’s estimated that of the roughly 3.9 million commercial truck drivers currently operating in the U.S., roughly 200,000 (5%) will not be able to continue driving as a result of the Trump administration crackdown.
Most truck drivers on America’s roads are legal and most companies operate ethically. But it is a disgrace that ethical companies and licensed American truck drivers have had to compete with foreign labor that operates as a form of chattel, being paid below-market labor rates while under the control of illegitimate operators.
With the impending shakeout, shipping rates will improve for the remaining (legitimate) carriers, and American truck drivers will see the value of their labor increase with the illegal labor being removed from the marketplace.
But for those companies operating illicitly, good riddance.
Embedded in the tweet below is a satisfying video from an American truck driver who is realizing that his illegal competition is suddenly gone. ”This parking lot is empty. It’s never been this empty. I don’t know what Trump is doing, but it’s never been like this. He needs to keep doing what he’s doing. Trucking gonna be up.”
In conclusion, I found this final tweet by Mr. Fuller to be refreshingly honest, but it’s also a frustrating reminder of how easy it is to have unwavering philosophic principles until the day comes that our principles get mugged by reality. In this case, he acknowledges that his libertarian, pro-immigration, open-border beliefs have been devastating to the American trucking industry and to American truck drivers.
As a libertarian, I was always pro immigration and have an enormous amount of empathy for people that are born in very poor and unstable countries. I know how fortunate I am to be born in America. But over the past few years, my perspective has changed. I've seen what unrestricted immigration has done to the trucking industry and how it has destroyed the livelihood of millions of veteran American truck drivers. It has made the trucking industry an economic wasteland and made it impossible for legit operators to make a profit and survive.
I am not in any way mocking Mr. Fuller, since I have also changed a lot in my idealism over the years. I too was once much more libertarian and pro-immigration than I am now. “Pro-immigration” used to mean bringing in people who forsake all other allegiances, learn our language and culture, and who are eternally grateful that they have the rare privilege of becoming U.S. citizens. But with “pro-immigration” now meaning advocacy for the importation of non-citizen workers, in violation of U.S. labor laws, under the control of criminal outfits who “own” the laborers, and involving “immigrants” who have no allegiance to the United States nor any interest in abiding by our laws, the modern redefinition of “immigration” is amoral, unethical, and destructive to our country.
Much gratitude to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and President Trump for cleaning up our highways and rooting out the criminality that has put so many unqualified illegal aliens in the cabs of semis. Truck driving is a great job for American citizens, and this administration is going to make trucking great again.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]