NEWNow you can take heed to Fox Information articles!
FIRST ON FOX: Following a number of high-profile, lethal auto accidents involving unlawful alien truck drivers, a business trucking business chief is blowing the whistle on the devastating “shockwave” unlawful drivers carrying sanctuary state licenses have had on the business.
Mike Kucharski, co-owner and vice chairman of JKC Trucking, which relies in Illinois, instructed Fox Information Digital that along with endangering American roads, unlawful alien business drivers have been “killing the trucking enterprise.”
He mentioned that although the issue has solely just lately been delivered to the forefront of the general public consciousness in current months, drivers and trucking companies have been feeling the impacts for years.
“We knew there was a difficulty proper after COVID as a result of the charges dropped down, and we simply thought, ‘Okay, look, it is simply inflation … the wars, etcetera, all these facets inflicting the volumes to be down. We’re pondering, ‘Okay. In the long term, these volumes will return as much as what they had been pre-COVID circumstances or simply return to common volumes, and we’ll be again in enterprise.’ However what occurred? The exact opposite occurred,” he mentioned. “They went down and stayed down, and we by no means knew, as truckers, what was the issue.”
WHITE HOUSE SAYS CALIFORNIA GRANTED LICENSE TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER CHARGED IN FATAL DUI CRASH
5 mugshots of alleged unlawful immigrants accused of lethal automotive crashes from across the US. From left, the mughots of Noelia Sarah Martinez-Avila, Juan Alfredo Chavarria-Lezama, Lionel Francisco, Mukendi Mbiya and Harjinder Singh, inset over a photograph displaying the scene of a lethal accident by which Singh has been charged. (ICE, Dane County Sheriff’s Workplace, Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Workplace, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Now, with current revelations from the Trump Division of Transportation and Secretary Sean Duffy about rampant unlawful alien truckers on American roads, Kucharski mentioned the reality is lastly out.
Duffy issued a bombshell report on Thursday accusing California of violating federal regulation by issuing a business driver’s license to a overseas asylum seeker whose semi-truck crash killed three individuals final week.
The report alleges that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration ignored a federal order to halt noncompliant licenses and revoke improperly issued credentials, a failure that, in keeping with Duffy, price “three harmless souls.”
Federal regulators uncovered flaws in how California licenses had been obtained by sure business truck drivers. The 2025 Annual Program Assessment and the Federal Motor Provider Security Administration (FMCSA) concluded that the state’s business driver’s license (CDL) system suffered from “systemic coverage, procedural, and programming errors” when it got here to dealing with non-domiciled licenses.
In an audit letter dated Sept. 26, 2025, investigators additionally found that California had issued CDLs to non-domiciled drivers that had been legitimate even after their federal work authorization expired.
BLUE STATE INVESTIGATES HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER GOT LICENSE BEFORE DEADLY FLORIDA CRASH
A break up picture displaying a fiery truck crash and the suspected driver, Jashanpreet Singh, 21. Singh is accused of being excessive on medicine on the time of the crash. (Obtained by Fox Information, ICE)
Kucharski defined additional that, although a closely regulated business, unlawful alien truck drivers can exploit a “loophole” within the system by acquiring non-domiciled business drivers’ licenses from states corresponding to California and New York. They’re then in a position to outcompete reliable trucking companies by charging decrease costs, resulting in the demise of many American small companies within the business.
“As a enterprise proprietor, I used to be pondering, ‘Properly, who’s taking all these masses?’ Now I may determine it out that that is one other shockwave that is hitting the truck business after COVID and violent volatility, these [non-domiciled] drivers are coming in and doing it for cheaper as a result of they do not care, and … they do not have social safety numbers, and I assume they’re in all probability not submitting for taxes. So, in the event you’re not going to pay all of your payments, after all, you are able to do it cheaper and carry on trucking.”
“All our truckers are preventing for a similar load, and it goes to the bottom bidder,” he went on. “In case you have these drivers coming in which might be non-domiciled, they don’t have any household right here, they don’t have any residence, they reside of their truck … They’re saying, ‘Okay, look, all of the market’s doing for $2,000, we’ll do it for $1,700.’ So, it is placing small trucking companies out of enterprise day by day.”
“We’re over-regulated, truthfully, within the trucking business. And in the event you’re overregulated, you assume, ‘Properly, there isn’t any method that this might occur, and it’s occurring, proper now as we converse,” he mentioned. “It is eye-opening, disturbing and jaw-dropping.”
Kucharski known as on Duffy in addition to different business leaders to take motion.
Together with the report final week, the U.S. Division of Transportation issued an emergency interim closing rule that tightened requirements for non-domiciled CDLs nationwide. Within the rule, stipulations modified and restricted eligibility to candidates holding sure employment-based visas. It requires each state to confirm their authorized standing by means of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
Below the brand new rule, any non-domiciled business learner’s allow or CDL should expire no later than the top date on the motive force’s federal immigration file or after one yr, whichever comes first. It additionally maintains that states should preserve proof of their lawful presence on file for at the very least two years.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCK DRIVER IN FATAL CALIFORNIA CRASH SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD LICENSE: DOT REPORT
Sean Duffy, US secretary of transportation, speaks throughout a information convention in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)
In response to Kucharski’s criticisms, a spokesperson for Newsom instructed Fox Information Digital that “California continues to observe federal guidelines relating to CDLs.”
“Misplaced within the immigrant-bashing is the truth that drivers holding a California-issued CDL are concerned in deadly crashes at a price far decrease than the nationwide common. If the main target had been on security, California ought to be a poster baby, not a scapegoat,” the spokesperson mentioned.
“In line with federal regulation, California issued business driver’s licenses solely to drivers if the federal authorities confirmed their authorized presence,” the spokesperson went on, including, “The Trump administration did not like these federal guidelines and only recently modified them to limit refugees, DACA holders, and others from with the ability to apply for a CDL.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“It is a very severe disaster concern,” Kucharski mentioned. “The trucking business is determined by belief. Which means guaranteeing each driver on the street is correctly licensed, well-trained, and mentally and bodily match to function heavy tools.”
“All I can say is methods like this remind us that reform is not nearly insurance policies, [its] about human lives. And it is on all of us, from the regulators to the fleet house owners, to the motive force trainers, to make sure the system works the way in which it ought to.”
Fox Information Digital additionally reached out to Hochul’s workplace for remark however didn’t instantly obtain a response.
Fox Information Digital’s Jasmine Baehr and Christina Shaw contributed to this report.
