US halts worker visas for commercial truck drivers after deadly Florida crash involving Indian man

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said that failing to adequately enforce driver qualification standards poses serious safety concerns and increases the likelihood of crashes.

Washington: The United States is immediately pausing the issuance of all worker visas for commercial truck drivers, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday.

"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," Rubio said in a post on X.

The administration of President Donald Trump has taken a series of steps to address concerns about foreign truck drivers who do not speak English. Trump in April signed an executive order directing enforcement of a rule requiring commercial drivers in the US to meet English-proficiency standards.

Earlier this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has launched an investigation into a crash on a Florida highway that killed three people. The crash involved a driver who was an Indian national and did not speak English or have legal authorization to be in the United States, according to Florida and US officials.

Harjinder Singh has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and 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.

Florida officials took custody of Singh in California to return him to the state to face charges.

A lawyer for Singh could not immediately be identified. While the English-proficiency standard for truckers was already longstanding US law, Trump's executive order in April reversed 2016 guidance that inspectors not place commercial drivers out of service if their only violation was lack of English.

Duffy has said that failing to adequately enforce driver qualification standards poses serious safety concerns and increases the likelihood of crashes. FMCSA said in 2023 that about 16% of US truck drivers were born outside the United States. Last month, Reuters reported that Mexican truck drivers in the border city of Ciudad Juarez have begun studying English in efforts to comply with the Trump order.