MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — For nearly a year, federal and state agencies have been on the hunt. Tracking, checking, and targeting commercial vehicle safety violations, criminal activity, and threats to Florida’s transportation network.
Read more The Latest: Trump says he may pull Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination for now
The crackdown set off after a truck driver, who authorities said was in the country illegally, made an illegal U-turn that caused a crash that killed three people on the Turnpike in Saint Lucie County.
Since then, the industry has been on high alert.
“There’s a lot of disruption in this industry,” said Osvaldo Canto, an instructor with the Commercial Driver License program at Miami Dade College. “In our opinion, it was needed because we were seeing a lot of things going on that they were not supposed to be happening.”
Canto said enrollment in the program has boomed. New and experienced drivers want to comply with state and federal requirements.
“They need to have basic English,” Canto said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has been enforcing the executive order. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced states couldn’t issue commercial licenses to drivers who couldn’t speak English. Law enforcement checks the driver’s language skills during traffic stops or inspections.
Read more US and Iran trade missile barrages as hopes dim for a quick resolution to the five-month conflict
Luis Garcia is a student in the program at Miami Dade College. He is taking English proficiency courses at MDC.
“I’m originally from Cuba,” Garcia said.
Critics say the increased enforcement unfairly targets immigrants, and it is to blame for a shortage of truck drivers. Canto hopes it will just make the roads safer.
Related story: White House wants veterans to replace immigrant truckers who lost their licenses in crackdown
Read more Father who gave his son the gun used in a Georgia high school shooting to be sentenced
