Posted on May 2, 2025

Trump Sides with American Truckers

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, May 2, 2025

A national identity requires a common language. Some would say that’s old fashioned because we are a nation of diversity, but is it really too much to expect truck drivers to be able to read road signs?

The above news report shows that a journalist managed to find a trucker upset about President Donald Trump’s new executive order, which requires that drivers read and understand English. The driver claims he has not had a problem in 15 years, which shows that you can live and work in the US that long without learning the common language. If anything, his life proves the need for this executive order.

The order also tightens requirements for commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), with the secretary of transportation told to make sure “drivers are validly licensed and qualified.” The founder of American Truckers United, Shannon Everett, claims that “hundreds of thousands” of truckers are not properly vetted, and blames the Biden Administration, which said it was cutting “red tape” and “diversifying” the trucking workforce, though it specifically referred to women, not immigrants. The Biden Administration also expanded the number of H-2B visas to admit more than 60,000 foreigners from non-white countries, such as Haiti. The industry claimed there was a driver “shortage,” but truck drivers’ pay has been falling behind other industries, and experienced drivers are leaving the industry in disgust over low pay and bad work conditions.

In June 2016, under President Obama, DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration weakened enforcement of the trucking industry’s safety standards. Though both federal regulations and NAFTA require drivers to “to be able to communicate in the country in which the driver/carrier is operating so that safety is not compromised,” the memo says drivers should not be cited for violations even if they cannot read, write, or speak English during inspections. The standard now is to “communicate sufficiently with the inspector/investigator.”

It’s not just American truck drivers who pay the cost. Ordinary Americans are in danger. On March 13, an 18-wheeler on I-35 in Austin, Texas, caused an 18-car pile up and killed five people. The driver was Solomun Weldekeal-Arya, who struggled to speak English in the aftermath.

According to independent reporter Sarah Fields, he was an immigrant from Ethiopia with a CDL from California. A judge reduced his bail because a toxicology report supposedly showed he was not on drugs, which only raises further questions about his driving abilities. He is currently out of jail.

In June 2024, Jose Medina-Hernandez was driving a box truck when he rear-ended a car in Shelby Township, Michigan, killing an elderly woman and her daughter. He was an asylum seeker with DHS’s Systemic Alien Verification Entitlement (SAVE) program. He didn’t have a valid CDL, just a driver’s license — despite being in four previous accidents. He was convicted of two misdemeanors and sentenced to less than a year in jail.

That same month, Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza drove his semi-truck off the side of the road, dumping his load of pipes and iron onto five other cars, killing Scott Miller. Mr. Cruz-Mendoza was in the country illegally and was under a deportation order. He had reportedly been returned to Mexico several times before. ICE recently deported him after he served his brief sentence. The company that employed him had a history of using unlicensed drivers. Mr. Miller’s widow personally urged ICE to deport her husband’s killer.

Licenses for commercial truck drivers in Canada are honored in the United States, so immigrants who begin driving there can pose a threat here. The most notorious recent case was that of Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, who immigrated from India to Canada in 2014. In 2018, he killed 16 people and injured 13 others when he drove his truck into a junior hockey team’s bus. In the 11 days leading to the crash, he committed 70 separate violations of federal and provincial trucking regulations. His employer was Adesh Deol Trucking Ltd, owned by Sukhmander Singh.

American Truckers claims that fatal truck accidents have increased since the English-language requirement for drivers was watered down by the Obama Administration. There was also a notable spike after 2020. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Commission disputes this, as do some states, but there is no consensus. There is not even a firm answer on how many non-domiciled CDL (licenses granted to residents of other states or countries) there are. Without enforcement and tracking, regulations are meaningless. It is also difficult to dispute the view that the roads are becoming more dangerous when the explanation is that the system is so chaotic there is little reliable data.

“Safety” is usually a popular political cause, but “racism” is even more powerful. Thus, the “Sikh Coalition” says that the new executive order could “unfairly disadvantage” Sikhs. About 150,000 work in trucking. Industry leaders worry their drivers could be taken out of service because they can’t speak English (which is the point). The Greater Houston Trucking Association says the new rule could create “unnecessary barriers for hardworking individuals.” One trucking company head quoted by the Houston Chronicle thinks the rule “singles out” Hispanics.

This suggests that Sikhs, Mexicans, and other non-whites can’t learn English. Not only should we not expect non-whites to assimilate, we shouldn’t expect them to learn enough of the common language to operate dangerous machinery safely.

Trucking is one of the few jobs that has paid a reliable, living wage for working Americans, so it is not surprising industry leaders want to hire cheap foreigners. Democrats have been willing to hurt American truckers in the name of diversity. Caught between corporate greed and progressive mania for more BIPOCs, American truckers are being driven out of the industry. President Trump’s action has won support from the Small Business in Transportation Coalition and the Owner-Operator Independent Driver Association. What is at stake is whether Americans will still be able to get a job driving trucks in their own country, or whether we are just supposed to dodge incompetent Third Worlders on the highways.

About Gregory Hood

View all posts by Gregory Hood
Mr. Hood is a staff writer for American Renaissance. He has been active in conservative groups in the US. You can follow him on Gab.