U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled an employment and immigration policy to pull undocumented immigrants out of commercial truck driver seats and fill those vacancies with U.S. military veterans. It is seen as a multipurpose card that goes beyond job creation to rally his core base and speed up the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
On the 30th (local time), President Trump announced at the White House a so-called "Carriers of Freedom" program that will drastically streamline the process for veterans to obtain commercial truck driver's licenses. The move will proceed in tandem with efforts to remove foreign drivers who cannot speak English properly or are undocumented from the overland logistics network.
The program is jointly led by several government ministries, including the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs (MPVA), and the Ministry of Labor. First, it extended from 12 months to 24 months the period during which discharged service members who have completed their military service can be exempted from the license acquisition screening. It will also support separate training courses for those without experience driving large vehicles in the military. In particular, Indiana and Wyoming newly joined a federal program that immediately converts military licenses into civilian commercial licenses through exchange. The large transport corporations Werner Enterprises responded to the program by saying, "We will hire 1,400 veterans."
At the announcement, President Trump said, "We have already removed more than 24,000 drivers who do not speak English from the roads," adding, "We have also had states cancel more than 28,000 commercial driver's licenses that were illegally issued to illegal aliens." He continued, "As we drive illegal aliens off the roads, we are taking steps to replace these unqualified immigrant truck drivers with fully qualified American combat veterans."
White House Spokesperson Anna Kelly said, "The Trump administration made roads safer by forcing truck drivers who are undocumented or cannot speak English off America's highways," adding, "Now, through the Carriers of Freedom program, the president is expanding opportunities for combat veterans to more easily obtain commercial driver's licenses after completing their service." According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, veteran drivers have a 42% lower accident rate and drive 98% farther than general drivers, contributing significantly to stabilizing the logistics network. The U.S. Department of Transportation highlighted policy results, tallying that "since the launch of the Trump administration, the real wages of truck drivers have risen 7.42%."
Truck driving is the key artery responsible for America's overland logistics and a representative job largely held by the white working class, Trump's solid political base. As of 2023, 16% of truck drivers in the United States were foreign-born, underscoring the sector's reliance on immigrants.
But criticism has intensified as deadly crashes involving foreign drivers have followed in succession, including a recent case in Pennsylvania where a police officer was struck and killed by a truck driven by a driver from Haiti. In April last year, the government signed an executive order that sharply tightened English proficiency standards for commercial drivers, and in August it moved to choke off the pipeline by completely halting the issuance of work visas for truck drivers. As the government accelerates a reshaping of the overland transport industry's workforce around U.S. citizens and discharged service members, the ripple effects are expected to grow.