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Immigration

ICE Opens a Tip Line to Report Undocumented Truck Drivers

DHS has pushed to get noncitizen commercial drivers off the road, despite data indicating they comprise a small number of fatal trucking accidents.

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The new tip line asks Americans to report any truck driver they suspect of being undocumented. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

By Gavin J. Quinton

September 9, 2026 06:47 p.m.

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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin launched a new tip line Wednesday for reporting individuals who have fraudulently applied for a commercial driver’s license.

The new tip line, run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asks Americans to report any truck driver they suspect of being undocumented. It’s the latest move in the Trump administration’s crackdown on fraudulent commercial driver’s license holders following a number of high-profile crashes involving foreign-born drivers.

“Too many American lives have been lost or permanently changed because illegal aliens who have no business being on our roads have been granted CDLs,” Mullin said.

In March, some 200,000 truck drivers began losing their commercial licenses after the Department of Homeland Security announced that asylum seekers, refugees and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would no longer be eligible to obtain or renew CDLs, which are required to operate buses, semitrucks and tractor-trailers.

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And though Homeland Security pointed to a series of fatal accidents around the country, federal data does not indicate that noncitizen commercial drivers cause a disproportionate share of fatal crashes, and the Transportation Department has previously said there is not enough data to establish a relationship between immigrant truckers and fatal crashes.

At a March congressional hearing, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Oklahoma) said at least 17 of a total 5,134 fatal crashes in 2025 involved undocumented immigrants driving commercial vehicles.

A social media post from DHS featuring a 30-second animation made in the style of a vintage cartoon called “Fraud Roadsters” garnered thousands of views on X, with many republishing the video and calling for action.

“I’m going to drive on I-35 tomorrow for however long it takes to find and report at least 10 foreigners,” one user said on X.

“REPORT EVERYONE THAT LOOKS LIKE THEY’RE NOT AN AMERICAN,” wrote another.

Several civil rights groups have opposed the crackdown, aiming to reverse what they call discriminatory license cancellations. They have accused the Trump administration of using isolated crashes to portray immigrant drivers broadly as a safety threat and drumming up profiling incidents of immigrant drivers.

In a July court filing, a coalition that included the Sikh Coalition, the Asian Law Caucus, United Sikhs, Stop AAPI Hate and Truckers Movement for Justice said the administration was using immigration status as a proxy for safety. The groups asserted that the Trump administration’s policy has exposed immigrant drivers to a greater number of commercial-vehicle inspections as “a pretext for immigration arrests.”

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Default image for Washington Sun headshot Gavin J. Quinton is a reporter at The Washington Sun.

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