Trucking carriers have benefited from a steady supply of cheap labor from illegal immigrant drivers, but the consequences have sometimes been deadly. Since the start of 2025, at least 28 people have died and many more have been injured in 16 collisions involving drivers who had no right to be in the country.
Some of the drivers had overstayed visas, while others had entered the country illegally. Most did not speak English, and two did not even have the commercial driver’s license (CDL) required to operate a larger vehicle.
The drivers came from Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, China, Serbia and Cuba, with half originating in India. Many have either been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or have an ICE detainer placed on them.
In October, one of the seven drivers on the Caller’s list with the last name Singh was allegedly driving under the influence when his truck was involved in an eight-vehicle collision that killed three people.
ICE said Singh had illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 before being released by the Biden administration. He now has an ICE detainer placed on him.
“It is a terrible tragedy that three innocent people lost their lives due to the reckless open border policies that allowed an illegal alien to be released into the U.S. and drive an 18-wheeler on America’s highways,” said then-Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This accident follows a disturbing trend of illegal aliens driving 18-wheelers and semi-trucks on America’s roads.”
Dashcam footage captured the semi-truck smashing through three cars before rear-ending another semi-truck, veering to the right and colliding with two more vehicles parked on the highway’s shoulder.
Dax Bello, an attorney representing Yaniel Cantelar, the daughter of one of the three victims in an August 2025 collision involving another semi-truck driver with the last name Singh who had allegedly entered the U.S. illegally, said there is “no shortage of unqualified and unfit drivers on the road in this county.”
“You’re putting somebody behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound lethal weapon. You need to make sure that this person is absolutely fit and absolutely qualified to operate that thing and do it safely for the benefit of anybody else on the road and even for themselves,” Bello told the Caller.
He alleged that the driver was unable to understand English sufficiently to follow signs directing him not to take the illegal U-turn that led to the collision. His firm is also alleging that the defendants, White Hawk Carriers Inc., had many unsafe driving citations, hours of service violations and “things that make them themselves very much unfit to even be running loads on the interstate highways of the United States.”
“White Hawk hired him, dispatched him, kept him on the road,” Bello said, adding that “a reasonable background check would have revealed that he was unfit and unqualified, and should have never been on the road in the first place.”
White Hawk Carriers did not respond to the Caller’s request for comment.
Executive Vice President of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Lewie Pugh told the Caller that these men wouldn’t have even been driving if they weren’t hired to do so. He said carriers only hire such unqualified drivers because the reward drastically outweighs the very low risk these companies face in hiring illegal immigrant drivers.
Pugh said many people come to the U.S. to set up a trucking company before returning to their own country, where they recruit new drivers with false promises of wealth to come to the U.S. and drive, only to be paid extremely low wages in a manner that he said is akin to “indentured servitude.”
“Realistically, all you have to do to become a motor carrier is pay 300 bucks to the state, get some insurance and buy a truck,” the Executive Vice President said. “There’s really no vetting process, and they don’t even test or have standards to even know if you know what you’re doing.”
He said that he and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s concern is not with the nationality of any driver, but in supporting change that enures who ever is driving on American streets is qualified to do so.
A key contributing factor to driver readiness is training, Pugh said. Truck-driving schools often brag about being able to give applicants a license in 24 hours, with classes that are often not even in English, before sending them to be reviewed by third-party testers. The schools have an incentive to maintain high pass rates because doing so is good for business.
These schools are a major target of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Joint Task Force Crossroads of America, which they announced Monday and which divides responsibility between the agencies to crack down on fraud in the trucking industry.
Task force actions include a “[s]ynchronized single-day sweep targeting more than 200 training schools across 23 states” by DHS and the “[e]mergency removal of 110 commercial driver’s license (CDL) schools associated with more than 5,000 drivers who failed English language proficiency tests” by DOT, according to a press release.
“A lot of these actions that are potentially taking place in the trucking industry and inside motor carriers are not just regulatory; they have a criminal aspect to it, and we want to have the resources by working together to root this out,” said Derek Barrs, the administrator of the DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
“Investigations may result in significant fines for the motor carrier, criminal penalties, and, in some cases, revocation of the carrier’s authority to operate,” Adrienne Gildea, the Deputy Executive Director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, told the Caller. “While these consequences may seem severe, so are the consequences to the motoring public when a collision occurs and there is loss of life.”
Reports have warned of “chameleon carriers,” such as the employer of Alexis Osmani Gonzalez-Companioni, a Cuban driver who overstayed his visa before being involved in a collision that left five people dead, according to CBS News.
CBS News reported that the carrier, Hope Trans LLC, had belonged to Aishat Magomedova and Sarvar Muradov, who have been connected to at least three trucking companies that had all been shut down following safety issues. VINs suggested that trucks from one of their other companies, which had closed for safety violations, were simply moved and operated under Hope Trans LLC.
Barr said that although a vast majority of carriers are good-faith actors offering an invaluable service to the country, such chameleon carriers are real and are connected to a lot of the criminal activity seen in trucking.
Barr said that tackling these groups is part of the FMCSA’s combined effort with its Office of Inspector General and DHS, ensuring that these businesses are not able to reincarnate themselves after being shut down for safety violations or fraud.
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