'We've seen horrible accidents' | Indiana Republicans take aim at foreign-born truck drivers

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is cracking down on foreign-born truck drivers.

On Monday, Feb. 23, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and Attorney General Todd Rokita announced a joint effort to "protect Hoosier highways from illegal immigrants" with commercial drivers licenses (CDLs).

A CDL is needed to drive any vehicle that weighs more than 26,000 pounds or is transporting 16 or more people. That includes semi-trucks, most buses and many other commercial transportation vehicles.

In order to get a CDL, you need to pass a test which includes English comprehension. But many states would issue the majority of the test in a driver's native language. The Trump administration recently ruled CDL tests had to be administered in English.

In the fall of 2025, Braun and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced 146 undocumented truck drivers were arrested as part of Operation Midway Blitz.

"As the Crossroads of America, Indiana must do all we can to ensure our roads are safe," Braun said in a statement. "In addition to strengthening our CDL licensing process, Indiana will revoke the CDLs of drivers who are illegal immigrants and penalize companies who employee them. Through strong enforcement we will keep our roads and highways safe."

Braun has ordered an audit of CDLs that were issued to foreign-born drivers from Indiana.

"As a result, the state is already in the process of removing hundreds of illegally licensed drivers from the road," the administration said in a statement.

"We've seen horrible accidents on our roads—terrible tragedies that ended in fatalities—all caused by illegal aliens driving commercial vehicles they had no business operating," Rokita said in a statement.

Braun and Rokita also worked with Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie) to introduce an amendment to House Bill 1200.

The bill, which deals with a variety of Bureau of Motor Vehicles issues, is now being heard in the Indiana Senate, where Sen. Michael Crider (R-Greenfield) has offered an amendment to require Indiana's CDL test only be administered in English.

"Non-domiciled CDL drivers are the biggest threat to Indiana roads and with the new penalty of a Level 6 felony and $5,000 fine for the non-licensed driver and $50,000 fine for the owner of the trucking company employing the non-licensed drive, we will be the first state to take action against dangerous and illegal drivers," Pressel said in a statement.

A number of reports find that foreign-born drivers are not involved in significantly more accidents than native-born drivers. There were at least 3,728 fatal crashes involving large trucks in 2025, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Only 17 of them involved foreign-born drivers on immigrant CDLs, according to the Department of Transportation.

In fact, even as the number of foreign-born truck drivers has increased since 2022, the number of deadly crashes involving semi-trucks is down 33% in the same time period. Put another way, of the 3,728 fatal truck crashes reported in 2025, 98% involved American truck drivers.

According to that same federal agency, the only foreign-born truck drivers involved in deadly crashes in Indiana since 2022 have been from Canada.

How did we get here?

The recent surge in foreign-born truck drivers was in response to a huge labor shortage in the trucking industry.

The American Trucking Associations estimated the country was short almost 79,000 truckers in 2022. Logistics company Wayfindr reported that situation had not improved by 2025.

About 71% of all goods in the country are transported by trucks. That means trucker shortages can result in higher prices by making logistics more difficult and expensive.

In order to meet this need, the Biden administration made it easier for foreign-born drivers to get visas to drive in the United States. This led to a surge in foreign-born drivers, at one point reaching one in six truck drivers, according to the National Immigration Forum.

But in 2025, the Trump administration started sharply restricting all visas for truckers. The only visas available to truck drivers were non-immigration ones.

In early 2026, the Trump administration announced new rules, targeting foreign-born drivers. In particular, the administration is concerned that non-English speakers were issued CDLs in some states.

But many drivers will continue to be foreign-born, simply because many of the goods on American roads come from our neighbors: Mexico and Canada. With a B1 business visitor visa, a driver from either neighboring country and pick up from the U.S. or take freight out of the U.S. They are not allowed to pick up freight in one part of the U.S. and deliver it to another part of the U.S.

Roughly 40% of all undocumented immigrants arrived in the country legally, under a visa. But if the visa expires without renewal, and the person is still in the U.S., they are no-longer here legally.

There are currently around 200,000 foreign born drivers in the United States on visas. The administration says it will only issue about 6,000 CDLs to foreign-born drivers moving forward. That means 97% of foreign-born drivers in the U.S. will lose their visa status.