US suspends work visas for foreign truck drivers amid safety, employment concerns

The United States has halted the issuance of work visas for foreign nationals seeking employment as commercial truck drivers, citing public safety risks and the impact on domestic employment.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement via a statement on social media platform X, sparking widespread discussion across the transportation and labor sectors, Caliber.Az reports.

Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers.

The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers.

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 21, 2025

“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers.

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 posted.

The move comes the same week Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy launched a DOT investigation into a deadly crash in Florida involving a truck driver from India who was reportedly in the country illegally.

The driver failed the English Language Proficiency assessment, getting two of 12 verbal questions correct and accurately identifying 1 of 4 highway signs during an on-site compliance investigation by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, according to DOT.

In May, Duffy signed an order outlining new guidance to enforce English proficiency requirements for truckers along with a nationwide audit of state’s that provide people non-domiciled commercial drivers licenses to non-US citizens.

The DOT found that Harjinder Singh, the driver in the Aug. 12 Florida crash that killed three people, got a regular full-term commercial driver’s license from the state of Washington in July 2023 that he was not eligible to receive. The agency determined he obtained a limited-term non-domiciled commercial driver’s license from California in July 2024.

DOT also said that on July, 3, after Duffy signed the order to strengthen English proficiency standards among commercial truck drivers, state police in New Mexico did a roadside inspection of Singh and gave him a speeding ticket, but the agency says police didn’t administer an English language test.

By Vafa Guliyeva