What to know about visas for foreign truckers and the politics of a deadly Florida crash

The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, announced this week that the United States suspended by delivering work visas to certain foreign truck drivers, warning darkly that they “endanger American lives and undercoat the means of subsistence of American truckers”.

He provided no details Thursday in his article with two sentences on the social platform X, leaving some in the trucking industry wondering if many drivers would be affected.

The short answer: no.

But the announcement seemed to be as much on politics as road safety, as Florida deadly crash involving a foreign truck driver has become more and more politicized, the offices of two ambitious governors who are fighting publicly.

With the Florida crash spreading in national policy, here is what you need to know:

It depends on how you define “a lot” and the exact number is not clear. But it seems that at most a few thousand 3.5 million drivers of commercial trucks in the country would be affected by the new directive.

The break is aimed at drivers applying for three types of visas, the State Department said on Friday, including the H-2B visa for temporary workers.

According to Jeff Joseph, president of American Immigration ImmigrationWyers Association, and 1,400

The program has helped to compensate for what many observers consider a persistent shortage of commercial drivers.

But H-2B visas are capped for most years at 66,000, drivers representing only a few percent of the total.

The other two categories of visas listed by the State Department are E-2, for people who make substantial investments in an American company, and EB-3, which is aimed at qualified workers such as health care employees, IT professionals and qualified specialists such as electricians.

The association of independent drivers of the owner, a professional association representing drivers of small businesses, applauded the administration to “see the myth of a shortage of truck drivers and continuous efforts to restore the safety standards of common sense on the highways of our country”.

The association rejects discussions on rarity, claiming that there are often independent truckers, but companies prefer drivers who cost less.

Jerry Maldonado de la Laredo Motor Carriers Association, a group of 200 trucking companies operating on both sides of the southern border, was relieved when the State Department published more details on the announcement of Rubio.

Mexican and Canadian drivers operate in the United States with B-1 visas, he said, which allow non-American citizens to briefly enter the country. Some feared that these visas can also be interrupted.

“The announcement has frightened some people, but I’m happy with clarification,” said Maldonado.

Rubio’s announcement occurred after three people were killed when truck driver Harjinder Singh made an illegal turnover on a highway, according to the state patrol.

A nearby mini-dinner struck Singh’s trailer when he went around. Singh and his passenger were not injured.

The Ministry of Internal Security said on Monday that Singh, from India, was illegally in the country.

The accident quickly became political, with the supporters of the Florida Republican Governor Ron Desantis, blaming the Democratic Governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

The two men were mentioned as possible presidential contenders.

Homeland Security said that Singh had obtained a commercial driving license in California, one of the 19 states that issues licenses regardless of immigration status, according to National Immigration Law Center.

“Three lives lost because of Gavin Newsom. Due to the failed California policies,” Florida Jay Collins said on Thursday at Stockton, California.

Singh, who flew to California after the accident of August 12, was arrested by American marshals in this city.

Desantis sent Collins to California to supervise Singh’s return to Florida, where he is accused of three homicide and immigration homes. Collins, accompanied by the staff in charge of the law application, has escorted Singh on the plane.

A Newsom spokesperson called Collins’s Tip of “Photo Test” and criticized Florida officials for leaving a “suspicious murder walk”.

Managers of the Trump administration and Florida insist that their concerns focus on immigration and road safety.

In recent months, the administration has taken measures to apply the skills requirements in English for truckers, following incidents in which drivers’ ability to read panels or speak English may have contributed to traffic deaths.

On Friday, the State Department also said that the government launched an examination of how it criticized foreign drivers and that “improved verification” will apply to those who have no valid visas.

Others see things differently.

“This is part of this game to show the voters who put Trump in power that he does his daily work to enforce immigration,” said Joseph, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “You create fear and panic in communities that there are a bunch of illegal extraterrestrial drivers on the roads.”