President Trump to replace illegal alien truckers with American veteran drivers

On Wednesday, Republican President Donald J. Trump announced a new effort to replace illegal immigrant truck drivers with American veterans. This follows a wave of road fatalities caused by foreign nationals unlawfully present in the United States, including the recent killing of a Pennsylvania State Trooper.

"Today, I am making one more important announcement," said President Trump during a roundtable in Pennsylvania. "My administration will soon take historic action to get illegal alien truck drivers...driving all over the American roadways...and we're going to replace them with proud American veterans."

The president explained that all veterans with experience driving US military trucks will automatically be eligible for a commercial driver's license (CDL). He described the illegal immigrant truck drivers as drug and alcohol addicts, who lack English language proficiency, resulting in the inability to read road signs, and therefore, are "killing a lot of people."

On July 1, Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael E. Pahira, Jr., 44, was struck and killed by a semi-truck in Schuylkill County. The truck driver was later identified as Michael Bon, an illegal immigrant from Haiti, who was issued a CDL by the state of Massachusetts, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said Bon was released into the US by the Biden administration in 2024. The Haitian national applied for temporary protected status (TPS) in October 2024, but it was never granted.

Trooper Pahira is one of many Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrant truck drivers. Trump's Department of Transportation launched a crackdown last year on states handing out CDLs to foreign nationals unlawfully present in the US.