What are Freedom Haulers? Trump admin recruits veterans as some immigrant drivers are removed

WASHINGTON —

The Trump administration announced its “Freedom Haulers” campaign Thursday at the White House. The program’s goal is to recruit military veterans into the trucking industry while removing tens of thousands of immigrant drivers from the roads.

“As we get illegal aliens off the roads today, we’re also taking action to replace these unqualified migrant truck drivers with highly qualified American veterans,” President Donald Trump said.

The initiative makes it easier for veterans to turn their military driving experience into commercial trucking careers. It expands access to truck driving schools through veterans’ benefits and promotes a waiver allowing qualified veterans to skip the road test. More than 40,000 veterans have already used that waiver.

The administration said the effort is focused on safety as it cracks down on drivers it claims should not be behind the wheel.

“They don’t speak English. They cannot read basic road signs. In many cases, they’ve engaged in reckless driving that has caused many, many preventable deaths,” Trump said, citing a deadly crash in Florida involving a driver the administration said was in the country illegally.

The administration has stepped up enforcement of English proficiency requirements, allowing inspectors to take drivers off the road if they cannot communicate in English or understand road signs. It has also tightened qualifications for certain commercial driver’s licenses and ordered states to review and revoke licenses it claimed were improperly issued.

The administration said about 26,000 drivers have been removed from service for failing English-proficiency requirements. It said another 30,000 commercial driver’s licenses have been canceled because they were improperly issued.

Josh Rosenthal of the Asian Law Caucus said, “The only people who have commercial driver’s licenses are people who are authorized to work in the country. That has always been the requirement. What we’re talking about is whether they have a form of work authorization that this administration likes or a form that this administration disfavors.”

Rosenthal is referring to immigrants who remain legally authorized to work in the United States but no longer qualify for non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses under the administration’s narrower eligibility rules. The new policy generally limits those licenses to people holding H-2A agricultural worker visas, H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas or E-2 investor visas, excluding workers with other forms of lawful employment authorization.

Rosenthal added, “That’s taken drivers out of essential trucking to move goods out of the ports of California and the Central Valley, out of school buses, out of garbage trucks, out of all sorts of essential services.”

The legal fight over the new restrictions remains underway. Immigrant commercial drivers are challenging the administration’s policies, while states are fighting federal demands to revoke licenses or risk losing highway funding.

The head of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Lewie Pugh, said recruiting new drivers is not the trucking industry’s biggest challenge. He said the industry’s primary issues are high turnover, low pay, a lack of safe truck parking, and insufficient training.