Conservative lawmakers are attempting to end the practice of illegal immigrants obtaining commercial driver licenses after a Kyrgyzstani national released on parole by former President Joe Biden’s administration in 2024 killed four Indiana natives in a massive crash this month.
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., recently unveiled the “Truckside Tipline” online portal to allow drivers to share concerns about illegal immigrants operating commercial trucks.
The National Conference of State Legislatures noted that approximately 1 million CDLs have been administered to illegal immigrants since 2013. Currently, around 130,000 illegal immigrant drivers operate in the United States, the Migration Policy Institute estimated.
A spokesperson from the senator’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that reports submitted to the portal will be reviewed by the senator’s staff and shared with the U.S. Department of Transportation and its Office of Inspector General.
The Danger of Illegal Immigrant Truck Drivers
Director of Government Affairs at the Federation for American Immigration Reform Joe Chatman told The Daily Signal that FAIR “is proud to support” Banks’ initiative, as well as other legislative efforts “to crack down on policies that undermine our laws and make our roadways unsafe.”
“The policy is an outgrowth of the radical sanctuary movement that has already produced devastating consequences for communities across the country and cost American citizens their lives,” Chatman added.
While the initiative also garnered applause from The Center for Immigration Studies, the organization’s executive director, Mark Krikorian, told The Daily Signal that the federal government should go a step further.
As stated by Krikorian, “truck drivers are atomized individuals,” which means that “there isn’t a lobby for truck drivers.” This absence creates a vacancy that the executive branch could fill.
Due to the interstate commerce that is created through the trucking business, Krikorian asserted that this creates grounds for the federal government to withhold highway funds from states that issue the CDLs to illegal immigrants.
“This is a legitimate area for federal supremacy. This is the kind of thing where the federal government should exercise authority over the states,” Krikorian said. “The federal government can tie highway funds. And that should be in statute, not just in regulation.”
Krikorian noted that the federal oversight over a state’s issuance of CDLs wouldn’t be unprecedented, given that this is how the federal government managed to raise the drinking age to 21 in 1984.
“This is how the federal government was able to raise the drinking age,” Krikorian stated. “The federal government withheld highway funds from states who refused to comply with the federal drinking age because drunk drivers operated interstate roads.”
Banks’ initiative is one of several efforts from conservative lawmakers to end the practice of giving CDLs to illegal immigrants.
In 2025, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., introduced the WEIGH Act, which would require all weigh stations along interstate highways to review a driver’s CDL and verify the English language proficiency of truckers.
Donalds’ bill would also direct the Department of Transportation to revoke the CDL program authority and federal highway dollars of states that do not comply with the enforcement protocols set by the Secretary of Transportation.
Financial Toll
Policy experts, lawmakers, and trucker industry veterans alike have noted that administering CDLs to illegal immigrants could be a strategic business decision. Employers turn to illegal immigrant drivers for cheap labor, which in turn displaces Americans from the trucking industry.
“The financial interest are all behind importing more drivers and giving them lower wages,” Krikorian told The Daily Signal.
Krikorian also pointed out that many of the CDLs administered in blue states do not come directly from state governments. Instead, the state government outsources the vetting and licensing process to private driving schools, which he has said are incentivized to certify “unqualified” illegal immigrant drivers who work for lower wages.
“States issue CDLs based on the say-so of driving schools. Many drivers have never had a representative from Department of Motor Vehicles with them in the vehicle during a driving test,” Krikorian said. “There’s a lot of real incentive in a lot of state to pass a truck driver that would not pass in a more confectious state.”
Krikorian added that the absence of illegal immigrant truck drivers in the trucking industry could provide Americans with employment.
“The idea that truck driving is a job Americans won’t do is laughable.”
Other legislative activists, like White Collar Workers of America, a “grassroots movement of American graduates, professionals, and patriots fighting to protect U.S. jobs from the harmful effects of worker visas,” estimated that 3.5 million American truckers are at risk of being replaced by illegal immigrant drivers.
Gordon Magill, a 28-year veteran trucker turned advocate for the revival of the American trucking industry echoed Krikorian’s remarks and claimed that the Biden administration, during the Covid-19 shutdown, doubled the amount of CDLs to meet the demand of online shopping.
However, instead of filling these CDLs with qualified, well paid and well-trained American drivers, Magill claims the Biden administration outsourced the increased number of CDLs to “unqualified illegals” who settled for a decreased wage, displacing American truckers from employment.
“They’re just letting everybody get CDLs, mainly immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers,” Magill stated.
These new truckers, Magill stated, were employed by fraudulent companies known in the trucking world as “chameleon carriers.”
Chameleon carriers, as stated by Magill, are based in foreign countries like India, which allows them to register with the Department of Transportation without adequate verification, pay their truckers lower wages, evade responsibility when accidents occur since they are out of the jurisdiction of prosecution, avoid being checked by the department for standard qualification, and “close up shop when busted by the feds and then register as a new company.”
Big Business Profits From Lower Wages of Immigrant Truck Drivers
Magill added that major companies like Amazon, chose to subcontract these fraudulent entities because “they charge a lower wage, and when an accident happens, Amazon can wipe their hands and get off the hook.”
Magill added that Amazon “farms out” their delivery driving jobs to “chameleon carrier” companies through “Amazon Relay,” their “internal load contracting system”
“Imagine an app-based service like uber, except it’s for trucks,” Magill said about Amazon relay, adding that “they hire carriers pretty much out of the street.”
“They’re not very good at picking the good carriers,” Magill added. “Anyone can sign up with Amazon relay, if you have the paperwork and a truck. The barrier to entry is pretty low.”
In 2022, the Wall Street Journal found that between February 2020 and early August 2022, “more than 1,300 Amazon trucking contractors received scores worse than the level at which DOT officials typically take action.”
Amazon did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
The presence of chameleon carriers, like those allegedly hired by Amazon Relay, Magill concluded, has displaced American trucking companies from the industry.
“I got laid off in July of 2023. And I can’t get another job in the industry to save my life,” the third-generation trucker said. “Thousands of American companies have gone out of business in the last 4 years.”
