Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is leading a sweeping effort to restore order to the trucking industry after years of chaos under Joe Biden’s policies. Duffy’s enforcement push is helping American truckers reclaim the industry from illegal migrant drivers who flooded the market and undercut wages.

“The reason there’s so much hope right now in our industry is because of the support from Secretary Duffy,” said Shannon Everett, co-founder of American Truckers United.

Everett said the momentum among truckers is building fast. “You’re seeing that the American truck driver realizes that they can no longer sit on the sidelines, that they have to get engaged in the political sphere,” he explained. “I definitely believe that that’s going to convert into more engagement at the [2026] polls.”

The trucking industry employs roughly 8 million Americans. Duffy’s changes are helping to stabilize the workforce by enforcing long-standing rules that were ignored under Biden.

Once in office, Duffy reinstated a rule requiring truck drivers to read and understand English, a basic safety standard Biden’s administration had overlooked. Since the rule returned in April, more than 7,000 foreign truckers have been taken off U.S. highways.

Federal and state officials have also begun increasing enforcement against illegal drivers operating in their jurisdictions. Duffy is now threatening to withhold millions in federal funds from California for allowing unauthorized migrants to drive commercial trucks.

Duffy has also gone after the American Trucking Association for pushing what he called a “fake trucker shortage.” He argued that the narrative was used to justify handing out licenses to unqualified foreign drivers.

“This [claim] was concocted in a way to allow people to come into our country to get licenses, commercial driver’s licenses, unlawfully, and then get behind the wheel,” Duffy said.

He added, “I don’t think that’s the appropriate approach. We have a long history of great American truck drivers. Like our air traffic controllers or pilots, they take their jobs very seriously.”

“What they do on American roads they think is of utmost importance, because it’s not just their lives, it’s the lives of the people around them on our highways and freeways that they’re concerned about every single day,” he continued. “Great professionals. So I think you’ll see American Truck drivers fill the space when we do what’s right and take out these unlawful [drivers].”

Duffy said the solution is simple. “If you need more drivers, make the case, tell people how great the industry is, how much you can make in a year by driving a truck, and it will be met with, I think, the number of applicants we’ll need.”

That shift has already forced the ATA to drop its “driver shortage” claim, admitting it was more about quality than quantity. ATA CEO Chris Spear said, “There’s never been a lack of people with CDLs… what we lack is the number of qualified drivers who meet our high standards of professionalism and safety.”

Duffy argues that removing illegal and untrained drivers will make the industry safer and more efficient. “If we’re able to take out the unlawful, untrained, non-English speaking drivers, we will not have an issue on our roadways,” he said. “Our products will move, but they’ll move safer because we have better drivers who are driving those big rigs.”

Still, Duffy faces opposition. Some judges have pushed back against federal enforcement on states, and a few House Republicans are backing a bill that could give future presidents the power to issue commercial licenses to migrants. Everett warned against the idea.

“That is the whole reason that we have this problem, because they [Biden’s deputies] exploited the loophole that’s in the rules,” Everett said. “The last thing we need is to put the loophole in the law — and Duffy gets that.”

Advocates say Biden’s open-border approach created a massive black market for illegal trucking operations, especially in states like California and New York. Migrant drivers posing as tourists have taken contracts from American workers, often through shell companies and unregulated brokers.

The results have been deadly. Many of these drivers work long hours with no oversight, causing dangerous crashes that leave American families to suffer the consequences. Everett said the insurance industry needs reform to hold the brokers behind illegal trucking companies responsible.

“When you have one of these nefarious trucking companies, and they do that kind of damage, they just shut down and disappear, and everybody’s left holding the bag,” he said.

For Duffy, this fight is far from over. His mission is to rebuild the American trucking industry from the ground up — one driver, one rule, and one safe highway at a time.