Shaun
The US announced on Thursday (local time) that it will stop issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday on X. “Effective immediately, we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers,” Rubio said. Rubio’s statement came days after a violent crash, involving a driver from India, killed three people.
The truck driver, Harjinder Singh, was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide. Police said he attempted to make an illegal U-turn through an “Official Use Only” access point blocking traffic and causing the fatal crash that resulted in the deaths of three people in a minivan that struck the truck.
What happens to already-applied worker visas for truckers?
The Trump’s administration is pausing all issuance of worker visas for foreign truck drivers
The US State Department said later Thursday it was pausing the processing of these work visas to review its “screening and vetting protocols.”
A State Department spokesperson said the pause was done “in order to conduct a comprehensive and thorough review of screening and vetting protocols used to determine their qualifications for a US visa.”
As per, the spokesperson noted it “applies to all nationalities and is not directed at any specific country.”
Foreign truckers in the US are usually working on H-2B visas.
‘Truck drivers must speak English’
In June, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a directive that truck drivers must speak English.
Truck drivers in the US are required to pass a test for a commercial license that has long included an assessment of whether they are proficient in English on basics such as road signs.
The Trump administration in the past months has taken steps to enforce the requirement that truckers speak and read English proficiently.
The Transportation Department said the aim is to improve road safety following incidents in which drivers’ ability to read signs or speak English may have contributed to traffic deaths.
‘Commercial truck driver shortage in US’
The department did not immediately respond to a question about the number of foreign truck drivers working in the US. Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said foreign workers have helped address a labour shortage of commercial truck drivers.
According to the American Trucking Association, a trade group, the industry is facing a shortage of about 60,000 drivers. The number of foreign-born truck drivers in the United States more than doubled between 2000 and 2021 to 720,000, according to federal statistics cited by news agency.
So far, in the 2025 budget year, 1,490 H-2B visas for truckers were issued. Last year, the government issued 1,400 such visas. As per reports, foreign-born drivers now make up 18 percent of the industry — in line with the US labor market as a whole.
More than half of the foreign-born drivers come from Latin America with sizable numbers in recent years from India and Eastern European nations, especially Ukraine, according to industry groups.
Citing reasons behind the move, Rubio said, “The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers.”
