WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., told colleagues that law enforcement is making it difficult for illegal truck drivers to operate in her state.
“While some states look the other way, my home state of Mississippi has tried to rein in this abuse in the trucking industry,” Hyde-Smith said in Senate floor speech on Thursday. “Mississippi has taken decisive action and, in just the last three months alone, has identified 85 illegal drivers and referred them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The state of Mississippi does not issue nondomiciled licenses and strictly enforces English language proficiency testing to keep our roads safe. My state is doing its part, but states cannot do this alone. The Federal Government must close these loopholes and enforce the law.”
Hyde-Smith, who chairs the Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) Appropriations Subcommittee, used the speech to urge taking up the FY2026 T-HUD Appropriations bill, in which Hyde-Smith included language codifying English proficiency requirements for truck drivers.
“Across the country, we are seeing a disturbing rise in deadly accidents involving large commercial trucks driven by individuals who should have never been behind the wheel to begin with, often foreign nationals in the country illegally who exploited weaknesses in our commercial driver’s license or CDL system,” she said.
“Sadly, incidents like this are becoming far too common, and we must ask why. The answer lies in failed policies.”
Hyde-Smith blamed the Obama administration for weakening CDL polices and opening enforcement loopholes.
“Inspectors were directed to issue citations rather than take unsafe commercial vehicle drivers completely off the road – a policy decision that has resulted in loss of life. Meanwhile, open border policies of prior administrations would have allowed illegal immigrants to enter the United States freely which, combined with lax Federal oversight, has let some states issue CDLs without proper language or competency testing.”
Hyde-Smith also urged action on legislation she has cosponsored to address English language proficiency for CDLs license applications, including the Commercial Motor Vehicle English Proficiency Act and the Safer Trucking Act.
Those measures, part of a handful of bills introduced in Congress over the last several months aimed at cracking down on CDL violations, would restrict CDL issuance to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and to those that have employment authorization from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.
