Trump moves to replace foreign truckers with veterans: What it means for Indian drivers in the US

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Trump's veteran-first trucking plan could hit Indian, Sikh drivers in US

Trump said the administration would train veterans and move them into trucking jobs, adding that many already have relevant experience from their service.

4 min readJul 17, 2026 04:35 PM IST

First published on: Jul 17, 2026 at 04:03 PM IST

President Donald Trump speaks at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., during the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit. (Photo: AP)

US President Donald Trump announced that his administration will move to remove what he called “illegal alien truck drivers” from US roads and replace them with military veterans, who would become automatically eligible for a commercial driver’s licence (CDL) based on their service driving heavy vehicles.

What did Trump say?

Speaking at the Pennsylvania Defence and Innovation Summit at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Trump said the administration would train veterans and move them into trucking jobs, adding that many already have relevant experience from their service. He said the plan would make “any American who’s driven a heavy truck for our military” automatically eligible for a CDL. He also claimed some of the drivers being removed can’t read road signs and suggested a number of them are impaired by drugs or alcohol.

.@POTUS announces that any American veteran who has driven a heavy truck for our military will soon be eligible for a Commercial Driver's License 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Qen6VIk94Z

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 15, 2026

Why now?

Trump tied the announcement to the July 1 death of Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr., who was struck and killed by a semi-truck on Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County while inspecting another commercial vehicle.

The driver, Michael Bon, a Haitian national who entered the US in 2024 and had applied for but was not granted Temporary Protected Status, has been charged with vehicular homicide and involuntary manslaughter. He had been issued a commercial license in Massachusetts, and ICE lodged a detainer against him after his arrest.

REPLACE illegal alien truck drivers with PROUD American veterans.

This is common sense. Thank you @POTUS for putting AMERICANS first. More to come. https://t.co/Q0IJmDUhSM

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) July 15, 2026

The administration has also pointed to the March arrest of Sukhdev Singh, a 25-year-old Indian national accused of striking a pedestrian with a semi-truck in Indianapolis, critically injuring a US citizen. Singh held a non-domiciled CDL issued by New York and was taken into ICE custody following the crash.

The move could hit the Sikh community in America hard. Of the roughly 750,000 Sikhs in the US, an estimated 150,000 work in trucking, and the North American Punjabi Trucking Association estimates they make up about 40 per cent of drivers along the West Coast alone.

How big is the broader crackdown

The veteran proposal follows a series of restrictions the administration has already put in place this year. In March, new rules took effect limiting CDL eligibility for several non-citizen categories, including many asylum seekers, refugees, DACA recipients, and workers who had previously qualified through Employment Authorization Documents; roughly 200,000 immigrants had commercial licenses revoked as a result, despite having already passed required tests.

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Categories that remain eligible under current FMCSA guidance include H-2A agricultural workers, H-2B temporary workers, and E-2 treaty investors.

In April, Trump signed an executive order directing the Transportation Department to enforce English-language proficiency requirements for commercial drivers and to review CDLs issued to foreign nationals. The Department said in February that at least 17 fatal crashes that had killed 30 people in 2025 involved non-domiciled drivers who would no longer qualify for licenses under the new rules.

Immigrants make up about 18 per cent of the country’s employed truck drivers, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, and the number of foreign-born drivers more than doubled from 315,981 in 2000 to over 720,000 in 2021.

(With inputs from agencies)

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