The safety of the American public is an apolitical endeavor by the government, with a duty to act irrespective of political party choices. The sanctity of human life supersedes all affiliations.
With 92% of American households having at least one vehicle, the highways are a critical piece of infrastructure that requires smart governance to keep us all safe.
However, the negligence of previous administrations — and the polarization surrounding the immigration issue — have turned our roadways into places that sacrifice innocent motorists as bureaucratic casualties.
Since the fatal U-turn crash that occurred on the Florida Turnpike involving an illegal immigrant from India, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has advocated for the restoration of America’s highways. He has also spoken freely about the abundance of bad actors within the trucking industry.
In an exclusive sit-down interview with Secretary Duffy at the DOT headquarters for my upcoming documentary, “The Illegal Highways,” Duffy spoke candidly about the uphill battle he’s waging against state politicians to keep Americans safe.
“This is not partisan. This is human life. This is safety,” said Duffy. “I can fight with Democrats all day long. There’s a whole bunch of things we could fight about, but not this. This is just good government, like, do the right thing.”
With Donald Trump following through on his campaign promise to fight even harder against illegal immigration, the Democratic Party has turned into an opposition party, even against common sense governance.
“This is a safety conversation. But because a lot of this involved illegal migrants, people who aren’t in the country lawfully, that has made it political,” said Duffy.
“Should they drive on American roads and have the ability to hurt an American family going to church on a Sunday or driving to Walmart on Tuesday? The answer to that fundamentally is absolutely not.”
Unfortunately for the American public, the Democratic Party has turned itself into the party of resistance to anyone within the Trump administration, creating an unnecessary conflict against Secretary Duffy.
“California was one that was really uncooperative,” he notes. “Eventually, we pulled almost $160 million from them and they’ve come into compliance now. New York has said, ‘We’re totally not going to comply.’
“And what’s frustrating about that is, if you have a certain point of view in California to give illegals commercial driver’s licenses that aren’t qualified to drive, that driver doesn’t just endanger the community of California. They endanger all Americans because these trucks are driving on all of our roads across the country.”
The part of the trucking industry that has been impacted by illegal immigration is over-the-road, long-haul transportation that involves driving through several states for a single load.
Shady chameleon carriers operate as small trucking companies and constantly alternate company names to stay in operation if one or more get shut down. Such companies are primarily hiring illegal immigrant drivers to undercut American carriers who are abiding by the rules.
Long distance trucking offers the greatest profit opportunity for trucking companies. By hiring illegal immigrants, essentially indentured servants, companies can make them drive twice as long as an American trucker for half the price.
Our roads are unsafe because of organized foreign criminals who make money off exploitable people, many of whom sell everything to pay for cartels to smuggle them into America only to work to the point of exhaustion for minimal pay.
“Do I suspect there’s organized crime? Yes,” says Duffy.
“But I’m not a law enforcement agency. Why do we have foreign companies owning carriers? Why would we allow that? It makes it really challenging to track who owns what.”
Another disturbing aspect is that many drivers who don’t speak English still end up behind the wheel of a truck.
This is down to the Biden administration’s push to allow commercial driving schools to self-certify, creating a massive growth of schools targeting foreigners with pay-to-play licensing.
“The last secretary, in essence, allowed the commercial driving schools to self-certify. You had schools to become a truck driver where it was just a P.O. box. There was no curriculum, there were no trucks. You pay someone $800, $1,000 and they will send you a certificate that you passed a commercial driver’s license school, and you have no training.”
“But the states, some of the more progressive states, have been unwilling to cooperate with us, with just the basics of saying you can’t give someone who’s in the country illegally a commercial driver’s license.”
America’s roads are less safe because the people in charge think playing the Trump opposition game is worth the casualties of Americans caught in the crossfire.
There are no exact statistics on how many people have been hurt or killed because of illegal immigrants driving trucks in our country — states, especially sanctuary states, aren’t necessarily investigating immigration status with every accident.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration acknowledges that there are at least 250,000 illegal immigrants driving trucks in America, many of whom aren’t trained to drive the vehicles, and don’t understand English.
Every death committed by an illegal immigrant trucker is a preventable one, and it’s the unnecessary deaths of Americans that made me an advocate for their families who rarely receive justice.
Governors like Kathy Hochul don’t care to listen to the anguish of grieving family members whose lives are turned upside down; it’s more important to her to score one more political point against our president.
I’ve sat across from David Moore, who lost his daughter, Tiana Moore, and the mother of his children, Tanya King, after an illegal immigrant from India failed to yield after driving for over 20 hours.
Listening to this loving grandfather break down as he recalls telling his grandson that his mother and grandmother are in heaven will bring anyone to tears.
I’ve interviewed Deann Miller, whose husband Scott Miller was killed in a 2024 crash in the Colorado mountains. The driver was an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was deported 16 times prior.
While many governors seem unmoved by this issue, Duffy has made it a priority. Secretary Duffy accepted my interview request because he knew that I was a conduit to give the victims a voice. On and off camera, he thanked me for helping to not let these preventable deaths go in vain.
Secretary Duffy is one of the few people who understands the risk of doing nothing, and he’s giving skeptics like me hope that we can restore the safety and common sense that was lost by incompetent bureaucrats from the past.
Adam Coleman is the founder of Wrong Speak Publishing and director of “The Illegal Highways” documentary.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
