United States of America's Highway Safety depends on Experience-Not Immigration Status

  America’s Trucking Safety Depends on Experience — Not Immigration Status

When the Department of Transportation issued its Interim Final Rule on September 29, 2025, targeting the commercial driving privileges of nearly 196,000 non-domiciled CDL holders, it framed the decision as a matter of “restoring integrity” and improving roadway safety. But the Department’s justification—citing three accidents involving non-domiciled drivers—raises more questions than answers. It also risks causing a crisis far larger and more dangerous than the one it claims to prevent.

The rule targets individuals who have already passed one of the most rigorous state-level testing systems in the world. Each commercial driver—domiciled or not—is required to demonstrate mastery of written knowledge, hazard perception, judgment, information processing, and practical driving skills under live traffic conditions. These tests are administered by trained professionals who assess exactly what matters for road safety.

Crucially, none of these capabilities are influenced by immigration status.

Driving a Class A commercial vehicle is not a theoretical exercise; it is a profession built on skill, endurance, situational awareness, and years of practical experience. The safest drivers are not the ones with the “right” paperwork—they are the ones who have spent thousands of hours navigating storms, construction zones, reckless motorists, mechanical failures, and the daily complexity of America’s highways.

To remove nearly 200,000 experienced drivers overnight—many with years of spotless records—ignores the basic truth that experience is the most valuable safety asset on the road. No regulatory change can manufacture it. No policy memo can replace it.

This rule does more than sideline workers. It risks destabilizing the supply chain at a time when the nation’s logistics system is still rebuilding resilience. Removing this many qualified drivers from the workforce will inevitably:

Flood the roads with inexperienced replacements

Increase training burdens on carriers

Raise freight costs and delivery delays

Disrupt essential goods movement

Create financial devastation for the families of 196,000 drivers

The nation simply cannot afford a safety policy that makes the roads less safe.

America’s democratic institutions have stood for more than two centuries because they protect principles of fairness, evidence-based decision-making, and equality before the law. A regulation that treats a driver’s immigration category as a proxy for safety fails that test. It also risks setting a dangerous precedent where professional competence is overshadowed by political gesture.

The Justices now reviewing this rule bear a weighty responsibility. Their deliberation is not only about regulatory limits—it is about whether the nation’s commitment to fairness and merit still holds. The executive branch crafts policy, but it is the judiciary that ensures those policies honor the Constitution, the facts, and the people affected.

A better path is possible. A fairer, smarter, safer approach would focus on what truly causes accidents: fatigue, substance misuse, poor maintenance, inadequate training, and unsafe carrier practices—not nationality or immigration paperwork. These are issues America has addressed before, with bipartisan support and industry cooperation.

We do not build safer highways by removing skilled drivers. We build safer highways by supporting them, training them, and enforcing rules that actually improve safety outcomes.

For the sake of road safety, economic stability, and the livelihoods of 196,000 families, this rule deserves not just reconsideration—but a complete re-examination grounded in evidence, experience, and the values that define American democracy.

Experience makes safe drivers.

Not immigration status.

Not political spectacle.

And certainly not a rule that confuses the two.