A sting operation in Oklahoma has taken over 100 alleged illegal alien semitruck drivers off the road.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt announced earlier this week that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to conduct a “targeted enforcement action” at a weigh station near the Texas border late last month.
The Operation
As reported on Thursday’s AM Update, authorities arrested 125 alleged illegal immigrants from countries including India, Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Mauritania in just three days.
Stitt was on Fox News Wednesday to sound the alarm about the sheer number of illegal aliens obtaining commercial drivers’ licenses and then operating 80,000-pound trucks across this country.
He reported that of the 520 vehicles pulled over at one of the checkpoints, “close to 25 percent of these drivers were illegally driving.” He clarified that those apprehended were “not people that are here legally with a legal CDL.” Instead, Stitt said “they had overstayed their visa” or “had illegally obtained this CDL” and are “violating the intent of the law and the absolute law.”
Troubling Licenses
Authorities say many of the licenses were issued by sanctuary states. One New York license made headlines for listing “no name given” for a driver’s first and middle name. And it was not an error.
The New York Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed to The New York Post the license, which was issued on April 14 and set to expire May 26, 2028, was real. A DMV spokesperson told The Post that “the commercial driver’s license was issued in accordance with all proper procedures, including verification of the individual’s identity through federally issued documentation.” The agency added that it is “not uncommon for individuals to have only one name.”
According to Oklahoma Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton, many of the licenses were expired or listed under a single name, making identification impossible.
Public Safety Threats
This operation comes just over one month after three people in Florida were killed in an accident involving an illegal immigrant truck driver making an illegal U-turn that suddenly blocked all lanes of traffic on a busy highway.
The 28-year-old driver did not speak English and failed to accurately identify three of four highway traffic signs in an exam. Despite the accused man’s lack of English language proficiency, he was granted a commercial driver’s license in Washington and then again in California. That driver, Harjinder Singh, pleaded not guilty earlier this week in Florida.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an emergency action last week drastically restricting eligibility for commercial learners’ permits and driver’s licenses to non-citizens after a nationwide audit exposed “a catastrophic pattern of states issuing licenses illegally to foreign drivers.”
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