The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is hitting immigrant truck drivers

Picture this: A semitruck loaded with 40,000 pounds of frozen chicken worth more than $100,000, abandoned on the side of the Interstate 40.

Why? The driver was arrested and detained by Border Patrol.

It’s become a frequent occurrence on highways today, according to Daniel Gonzalez, as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown extends to foreign-born truck drivers.

Gonzalez covers immigration for the Arizona Republic.

Amber Victoria Singer

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Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning.

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Good morning, nice to be here.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for coming in. So these truck drivers are arrested, detained by immigration authorities, then there are these massive loads of goods that are just left on the side of the road. This is all part of a bigger effort by the Trump administration to crack down on truck drivers. It’s called Operation Checkmate. Tell us about that. They say these folks are a danger on the roads essentially.

DANIEL GONZALEZ: So the Trump administration is focusing on kind of two classes of immigrant truck drivers: truck drivers who are not proficient in English and truck drivers who receive what’s called non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses. These are licenses that are issued to people who were born in other countries but live in the United States, and they have legal work permits, and through those legal work permits, they’re able to get a commercial driver’s licenses.

But as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, they have been taking away a lot of these work permits from people who are asylum seekers, TPS holders, people like those that are temporarily here, they don’t have actual status, but they have these work permits that allows them to work and get commercial truck drivers licenses.

So when they lose their work permits, they technically are no longer legal to have a commercial driver’s licenses, but often times the driver’s licenses, the expiration date exceeds the work permit dates, so those are the folks that the Trump administration is targeting. And it’s part of this overall mass deportation campaign that’s very much couched in a safety issue.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so the administration basically says this is about safety, right, like you said. That these folks don’t read English or speak English well enough to read the road signs or communicate during an inspection, things like that. Is there any proof of this?

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Well, I think they say that they are finding truck drivers on the roads when they pull them over who do not pass English proficiency tests and therefore should not be driving. But for example, the person that you mentioned in the beginning who had to abandon his load on the side of the I-40 ...

LAUREN GILGER: 40,000 pounds of frozen chicken, yeah.

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Yeah, well I interviewed him. He spoke fluent English extremely well. And so it raises the question of are some of these truck drivers really more that they’re pulling off the road really more about targeting immigrants than boosting the mass deportation campaign.

LAUREN GILGER: They cite some incidents in which there have been accidents involving foreign-born truck drivers, we should say. But when this happens, like you said, you interviewed this person who had to leave their load on the side of the road, the company has to fly someone out to go and drive that load somewhere else. They’re losing a lot of money on this, I’m guessing.

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Yeah, it affects the truck drivers and it affects consumers. In this particular case, he was driving a load of 40,000 pounds of frozen chicken that he had picked up at a processing plant in Indiana, and he was going to deliver it in California at a warehouse.

And on the way on I-40, he was followed by undercover Border Patrol agent, pulled over. He showed him his driver’s license, he showed him his work permit, he told him he had a pending asylum case, his asylum hearing was down the road. They took him, they detained him anyway, and he had to leave his — not only he left his entire rig there and then 40,000 pounds of frozen chicken, and then it took his owner, the owner of the vehicle, five days before he could actually get out to Arizona and pick up that truck.

LAUREN GILGER: So the other criticism here that advocates are pointing out, right, that is that these efforts seem to be aimed specifically at a certain group of immigrant truck drivers: Punjabi Sikh drivers. They wear turbans, practice a certain religion, look a certain way, right?

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Yeah, and going back to the other point that you made, and it fits in with the harassment that critics feel has been unleashed here. So there have been a number of high-profile accidents, and that’s what the Trump administration is using to justify this crackdown, and includes a very horrific accident that took place in the Florida Turnpike back in August of 2025, where an Indian-born truck driver was making a U-turn, he blocked three lanes of traffic, and three people were killed.

And there’s been a number of other spectacular, high-profile accidents like that that have involved immigrant truck drivers. So that’s the justification that the Trump administration is using for this crackdown. There’s no hard evidence that immigrant truck drivers are any more dangerous than other truck drivers, but nevertheless, that’s who they’re focusing on, and the largest group that are being targeted here are Indian Sikh Punjabi Sikh Indians.

And the concern is that this crackdown that has kind of painted Punjabi Sikh or Indian drivers as unsafe has unleashed this wave of harassment. So there’s some legal documents that include details based on interviews with some of these truck drivers that people are throwing water bottles at them, they’re hurling racial slurs at them. So there’s a very ugly aspect that has been unleashed here.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Let me ask you about the other side of this, though, because the Arizona Trucking Association, for example, is happy about this crackdown. They say this is a good thing because of so-called bad actors. What’s their point of view?

DANIEL GONZALEZ: So their point of view is that after the pandemic, there was this huge need for truck drivers, and there was this big influx of foreign-born truck drivers into the trucking industry. And that coincided, as you recall, during the Biden administration where we had millions of asylum seekers crossing the border and making their way into the United States. A lot of those folks who are in the process of applying for asylum or have Temporary Protected Status, they qualify for work permits, and they are able to with these work permits apply for commercial driver’s licenses.

The Trucking Association feels that this kind of influx of truck drivers created a recession in the trucking industry where there was too many truck drivers that drove the price down, and some of these owners are trying to cut costs, and one of the ways they’re doing it is by hiring at lower pay truck drivers who may not be safe to be on the road.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, OK. So let’s talk briefly here in the last minute or so about what’s next. Attorney General Kris Mayes is getting involved. There is a lawsuit sort of pushing back on this crackdown on immigrant truck drivers. What would that do?

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Well, the lawsuit is part of this crackdown. The Trump administration has filed subpoenas to get the records of all these truck drivers that are held in a database that states control.

And the states, Democratic — it should be pointed out — Democratic attorneys general have filed a lawsuit countering that, saying this is an overreach, they’re just going on a fishing expedition, they want to get the personal records of millions of truck drivers to see what they can find out. So they’re fighting that.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, OK. Lots to come on this front, I’m sure. Daniel Gonzalez covers immigration for the Arizona Republic, joining us to talk more about this story. Daniel, thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for your reporting here.

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Thanks so much for having me.