Trump Announces Dangerous Plan to Replace Immigrant Truckers
The White House is planning to strip commercial driver’s licenses from undocumented immigrants and effectively automatically transfer them to military veterans.“My administration will soon take historic action to get illegal alien truck drivers who are just killing a lot of people—they can’t read signs, a lot of them are on drugs or alcohol, and they shouldn’t be driving these things. They came in totally illegally and they—we don’t want ’em,” Trump said Wednesday at a defense and innovation summit in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “But they are driving all over American roadways and we’re going to replace them with proud American veterans,” Trump continued. “We’re going to take veterans, and we’re going to teach them a lot about driving trucks.”“And in many cases they know we’re going to say any American who has driven a truck for our military will automatically be eligible for a commercial driver’s license,” he said, noting that while left-wing politicians are opposed to the idea, it doesn’t matter because “we’re the ones who are running it.”The announcement comes two weeks after Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. was struck and killed by an undocumented immigrant driving a semi truck. The driver, Michael Bon, has since been charged with vehicular homicide and involuntary manslaughter. ICE filed a detainer for Bon the day after his arrest, according to a Homeland Security press release.The initiative to strip noncitizens of commercial driver’s licenses has already begun. Roughly 200,000 immigrants had their commercial licenses revoked in March, preventing them from driving semi trucks, buses, and tractor trailers despite the fact that they had already passed the tests and met the requirements to drive such vehicles.Beyond that, it’s not clear what type of vehicle handling in the military would provide adequate experience or training for a commercial license stateside. Granting such licenses to untested drivers could make the roads less safe.