The federal government and Florida are cracking down on undocumented truck drivers. The move comes as the trucking industry has been experiencing worker shortages.
During a press conference in Live Oak this week, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier highlighted the weekend arrest of an undocumented immigrant truck driver in Bay County.
“There's no telling how many illegal aliens are in this country driving large commercial vehicles and putting American families in a safety risk every single day,” he said.
Uthmeier and Governor Ron DeSantis have been raising alarms about the issue after an undocumented truck driver caused a fatal collision in the state earlier this month that killed three people.
DeSantis said during a Wednesday press conference the driver not being able to read or understand English was a problem.
“I blame the company. Putting this guy behind the wheel. What? You don't interview people before you hire him and put him in there if like, they can't speak English, like, that's a problem to be able to understand your way around,” he said.
The Florida highway patrol has started searching for undocumented truck drivers at check points as truckers enter the state.
The federal government has also paused issuing truck driver visas following the incident. That comes as the number of foreign-born truckers has skyrocketed in recent years.
Approximately 18% of the United States’ 3.5 million truckers are foreign-born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of foreign-born truckers has doubled over the last 25 years.
Michel Belzer, a former trucker and professor of economics from Wayne State University, points out the number of immigrant truck drivers has grown substantially in the country since 2000.
“The job attracts immigrants because it's an opportunity to go to work and it's an opportunity for them to get a foothold in the country,” he said.
He said that’s due to significant recruiting and retention problems for truckers because of declining compensation and protections since deregulation efforts in the 1980’s.
“Trucking has become a less desirable job because it's not a job that pays like it used to pay before deregulation. So, it is now a less desirable job, and compensation has declined greatly over the last 40 years, and probably in the neighborhood of 50% or so. It's hard to get American born truck drivers to take the jobs if they're not going to pay,” he said.
Business groups like the ATA – the American Trucking Associations - have reported trucker shortages for the past decade, citing a gap of tens of thousands of truckers with it expected to grow as the aging trucker workforce retires. Belzer said immigrants have helped fill that gap because they often have less choices about what jobs are available to them than native workers who are put off by worsening compensation.
“It's potentially a really good job to get a foothold in the economy. But it's not something that we're willing to devote resources to. Haven't been willing to devote resources to pay people to do so. It tends to attract people at the end of the labor market que whose alternatives are limited, and that's not a good situation,” he said.
The ATA has come out in favor of temporarily halting immigrant visas. Chris Spear, president and CEO of the ATA, said in a statement that the issuing of commercial driver’s licenses to those without legal residency quote, “needs serious scrutiny, including the enforcement of entry-level driver training standards."