Big Shock To Non-US Nationals On Truck Driver’s Licences

Following a fatal crash in Florida, the US Transportation Department said it was issuing an emergency regulation to drastically restrict commercial driver licences to non-US citizens.

Non-citizens will not be issued truck-driving license unless they fulfil the conditions mentioned in the new stricter rules. The new rules include an employment-based visa, and undergoing a mandatory federal immigration status check.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is also launching an enforcement action against California, to pause issuing some commercial driver licences to non-US citizens.

The US authorities arrested the “illegal” Indian driver, Pratap Singh, responsible for the crash in which a five-year-old girl and her father were injured last year. The department of homeland secretary blasted California governor Gavin Newsom for issuing an “illegal alien” a commercial driver’s alien.

In a second case, an Indian national living illegally in the US, Harjinder Singh, was arrested for causing a fatal accident while driving a commercial vehicle in August this year. 

Singh was charge with three counts of vehicular homicide after all lanes on a Florida highway with his 18-wheeler while trying to negotiate a U-turn, leading to the instant death of three people.