There are likely hundreds of thousands of truck drivers on American highways who were brought in on Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) and have not been properly vetted, Shannon Everett, co-founder of American Truckers United said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.
Everett dismissed arguments of there being a driver “shortage” in the United States, deeming that “mathematically wrong.”
“When you look at the number of CDLs [holders of commercial driver’s licenses], the problem is we have a living standard problem. We have a pay problem. We need to pay our drivers more than what these, these countries that we’re insourcing are paying, and so our drivers cannot compete at those wages,” he said, emphasizing the need to stop the insourcing of foreign drivers.
“And, you know, there’s, there’s a new problem that we’ve discovered. You know, that’s how, that’s how ACU started. But what’s going on today that’s even a bigger problem than what we just described, is the issuance of U.S. commercial driver’s licenses called non-domicile CDLs to noncitizens. That just started in 2021 under what’s called the Biden-Harris trucking action plan. And so we actually have non-citizens, just similar to what you saw those reporting on recently. Yeah, hey, we found out these guys are getting EAD (employment authorization document) cards. We found out they’re getting social security numbers. They’ve left one loose end. They also got commercial driver’s licenses,” he continued, explaining that they believe there are actually hundreds of thousands of drivers who came in on these EAD cards and have not been properly vetted at all.
“Problem with that is, these people have not been vetted, these people have not been properly qualified and trained. And so we actually have on our highways right now, we believe, hundreds of thousands of drivers that have been brought in on these EAD cards, not properly vetted, and then put in trucks,” he said.
“And so that’s why you’re seeing these increased accidents. That’s what you saw in Austin, Texas, with the crash that killed five people and injured 11. That was a non-domicile driver’s license, and so that guy had come in on a work visa, couldn’t speak English, wasn’t properly trained, and now we’ve got five people dead, 11 people injured,” he continued.
LISTEN:
Breitbart · Shannon Everett – April 9, 2025“So I got right here the Biden Harris administration trucking action plan to strengthen America’s trucking workforce. December 2021 — the first step is take steps to reduce barriers to drivers getting CDLs. Where does it say in here about illegal aliens? Or is that what that is? Is that what that means?” host Mike Slater asked, as Everett said they updated the fact sheet to include refugees in 2023.
“If you read further down on that fact sheet that you’re pulling up there, it’ll say that they doubled the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses in that first year in 2021, and they actually issued over 876,000 additional CDLs over their typical run rate. There was a shortage at the time of only 80,000 drivers. Why would you issue 876,000?” he asked, noting that they believe most of those went to “refugees who applied for asylum, received the EAD cards, and then were given a commercial driver’s license, and are now living on the interstates of America.”
Everett noted that this is not only a trucking issue but a public safety and national security issue.
“We should know who is, who are on our highways. These people should be properly vetted… We shouldn’t have to worry about who our family is driving next to on our interstates. And so I say, call your representatives, call your senators, and ask them, ‘Hey, what are we doing to make sure that everybody in the United States has a U.S. commercial driver’s license and can read and speak English?’ Like, let’s make sure and keep our country safe and let’s keep our roads safe,” he added.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
