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The United States will halt issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday, citing safety concerns and the impact on American jobs.
“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 wrote in a post on X.
The move is the latest in a series of actions by President Donald Trump’s administration aimed at tightening rules for foreign drivers. In April, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to enforce long-standing federal requirements that commercial drivers in the U.S. demonstrate English proficiency.
“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. “Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”
That order reversed the 2016 guidance that inspectors should not place drivers out of service solely for lacking English skills.
The announcement comes days after a fatal crash in Florida involving Harjinder Singh, an Indian national who authorities say did not speak English and was not legally authorized to be in the U.S. Singh has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide. Police allege he attempted an illegal U-turn through a restricted access point on Florida’s Turnpike, causing a minivan to slam into his tractor-trailer and killing three passengers.
Florida officials extradited Singh from California to face charges. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier this week that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has opened an investigation into the crash, adding that failure to enforce driver qualification standards increases risks on the road.
FMCSA estimates that about 16 percent of U.S. truck drivers were born outside the country. Last month, Reuters reported that Mexican truckers in Ciudad Juarez began studying English to comply with the Trump administration’s renewed enforcement of language rules.