Federal immigration authorities made mass arrests of illegal migrant truck drivers along a single highway during a two-day operation in Oklahoma.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), working alongside the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, nabbed 70 illegal migrants along the I-40 interstate in late October, including 34 who were operating big-rig trucks in violation of state law, according to the agency. The massive bust follows an ongoing crackdown by the Trump administration against illegal migrant truck drivers.
“For the second time in just the past month, the state of Oklahoma and ICE have banded together to bolster public safety along Oklahoma’s highways, identifying and apprehending illegal aliens who are in the country illegally and have been recklessly issued a commercial driver’s license by states like California, Illinois, and New Jersey,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles said in a statement.
“Many of the illegal aliens arrested behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound tractor trailer can’t even read basic English, endangering everyone they encounter on the roads,” Charles continued.
The massive bust, dubbed “Operation Guardian,” found that 26 of the illegal migrant truck drivers had obtained a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), typically from sanctuary states such as California, Illinois and New York, and another eight who were somehow driving a commercial motor vehicle with no CDL at all, according to the agency.
The busted illegal migrants hailed from all over the world — including foreign nationals from China, Guatemala, India, Uzbekistan and elsewhere — and carried serious rap sheets, such as convictions for violent crimes and other criminal offenses, according to ICE. Authorities credited Oklahoma’s 287(g) partnership program with ICE for the successful operation, which was the second of its kind in recent weeks.
ICE and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol arrested 91 illegal migrant truckers during a three-day operation along the same highway in late September, the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively reported at the time. The operation nabbed a slate of illegal migrants allegedly associated with money laundering, human smuggling, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, illegal re-entry into the U.S. and a litany of other alleged crimes.
The Trump administration has taken an intense focus on illegal migrant truck drivers since a spate of deadly highway accidents rocked the country.
Harjinder Singh, an Indian national living illegally in the U.S., allegedly took an unlawful U-turn off a Florida turnpike in August, blocking all lanes and instantly killing three people in a vehicle that smashed into his tractor-trailer. Earlier in October, Jashanpreet Singh, another unlawfully present Indian national, allegedly plowed into multiple vehicles off a California highway while under the influence of drugs, killing three people in the process.
Subsequent investigations found that Harjinder did not understand basic English or road signs and Jashanpreet had managed to upgrade his CDL in California just days before the horrific crash and in spite of emergency rules handed down by the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has responded to the issue by restricting non-domiciled CDLs from illegal migrants and handing down tougher English language proficiency standards for all truckers. The DOT has also withheld millions in transportation funding from California for purportedly giving CDLs to illegal migrants in violation of federal policies.
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