Trump to replace many migrant truckers with veterans

Transportation officials plan to replace unqualified migrant truck drivers with American veterans, President Donald Trump said on Thursday. The new Freedom Haulers initiative will allow any American veteran with experience driving heavy military trucks to receive automatic eligibility for a commercial driver’s license, Trump said.

Veterans already have experience driving the toughest roads on earth while defending American freedoms, according to a separate video from the Department of Transportation. Officials specifically encouraged veterans to apply for a license within two years of active duty. Veterans without heavy truck driving experience would receive an expedited, tuition-free course, Trump explained.

The initiative came after multiple foreign, non-English-speaking truck drivers caused American deaths on the road, such as Uzbek driver Bekhzod Asrarov’s killing of college soccer player Tobias Forsythe. The program is expected to eliminate nearly 200,000 licenses for foreign drivers, and the Trump administration claimed it has already forced states to cancel the more than 30,000 illegally issued licenses.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted Thursday afternoon that illegal alien truckers were out, and American veterans were in. He thanked the president for putting American safety first.

Dig deeper: Read my report about the accident that killed Tobias Forsythe.