U.S. halts visas for truck drivers after fatal Florida crash

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(Bloomberg) — The US will stop issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, the latest in a series of Trump administration moves to clamp down on foreign workers.

“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers,” he wrote on X 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.”

The secretary of state’s command didn’t include statistics nor specific examples detailing the nature of the threats.

The move follows a deadly Aug. 12 crash on the Florida Turnpike involving a truck driver who the Department of Homeland Security said was in the country illegally. The driver of the rig, accused of making an illegal U-turn, is a migrant from India and had been issued a commercial driver’s license in California, after obtaining a work permit by the federal government.

The Department of Transportation said on Tuesday that it had opened an investigation into the crash. Top Republican officials, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have used the episode to fuel a political rivalry with California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat.

The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to tighten immigration rules for commercial vehicle drivers. In May, the Department of Transportation said it would increase enforcement of an English-language requirement for drivers following an April executive order from Donald Trump.

The State Department has revoked more than twice as many visas since Trump’s inauguration as the same period in 2024, an official said, as the White House looks to tout its crackdown on foreigners that it says pose a threat to public safety.

The decision comes at a difficult time for the industry to attract and retain drivers due to the arduous nature of the work. The industry is still recovering from a driver shortage that reached 78,800 drivers in 2022, according to the American Trucking Associations.

So far, in the 2025 budget year, 1,490 H-2B visas for truckers were issued. Last year, the government issued 1,400 such visas.

The ATA said it supported the government’s pause of work visas, adding that the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses to foreigners “needs serious scrutiny.”

“We also believe a surge in enforcement of key regulations — including motor carrier compliance — is necessary to prevent bad actors from operating on our nation’s highways, and we’ll continue to partner with federal and state authorities to identify where those gaps in enforcement exist,” ATA Chief Executive Officer Chris Spear said in a statement.

—With assistance from Eric Martin and Alicia A. Caldwell.