Canada Urges Action as US Suspends Visas for Foreign Truck Drivers

The United States halted the issuance of worker visas to foreign commercial truck drivers, alarmed at the problem, the most significant Canadian association made an appeal to Ottawa in order to promptly respond to the immigration issues in the field.

The US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced the American action on Thursday. He posted on X, “The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers.”

That was after a traffic accident in Florida earlier this month that involved an Indian-origin truck driver who had in 2018 entered the United States illegally yet was able to acquire a commercial driver licence in California the following year.

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On August 12, Harjinder Singh, on duty in a truck, made an illegal u- turn, killing three persons in a minivan. Singh is subject to possible deportation, and charges of vehicular manslaughter on counts of 3. He had been previously adjudged in an attempt to be deported under the first Administration of President Donald Trump but went into the asylum system because he had claimed to fear being sent back to India.

Canadian developments are being echoed in the US, on the other hand. Canadian Trucking Alliance, hereinafter referred to as the CTA, has issued a statement on Friday, said, “The Visa restrictions announced by Secretary Rubio do not pertain to the Visas utilized by drivers in Canada. However, CTA believes Canada must view these events as a wakeup call to clean up the issues within our system or risk potentially facing similar restrictions in the future.”

The CTA said it that “has been adamant with governments the problems in the industry related to immigration are very evident and must be addressed.”

It decried Government inaction with regard to the redesigning of trucking immigration programmes, both provincially and federally.

“It is not acceptable that those who follow the rules and operate legally be caught in the net the US is casting,” the release added.

The CTA noted, “Unfortunately, the Canadian trucking industry has seen an influx of trucking fleets and ownership groups who have little regard for safety and other ethical financial & labour business practices.”

In Canada, tragedies have happened that are similar to something like what happened in Florida. On Friday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) provided a statement concerning the arrest of Navjeet Singh (25), a resident of Brampton. He was under charges in regards to the death of a 35-year-old woman and her party of eight-year-old daughter, after he had allegedly failed to stop at an intersection in the province of Manitoba; he had been driving a semi-trailer truck.

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There was a Canada-wide arrest warrant against him and finally he was arrested on Thursday when he presented himself at the Toronto airport.

One of the most dramatic accidents on the territory of Canada was the death of 16 people, the majority of them belonging to the Humboldt Broncos junior ice hockey team, who were killed in 2018 as the team was hit by a truck driven by Jaskirat Singh Sidhu. That was a tragedy which happened in April 2018 in the province of Saskatchewan. Sidhu spent three years in jail and he is now fighting a deportation order.

Indo-Canadians hold a signification percentage of the Canadian trucking industry. Although most of such operations are legitimate, in recent years concern has been raised with regard to the activities of one section.

In the US and in Canada, a large number of Indian-origin truckers have been arrested in the last few months who attempted to smuggle drugs. More recently, the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) revealed on August 7, that Onkar Kalsi, a 29-years-old, was arrested because he attempted to smuggle cocaine valued at almost CA$ 25 million.

Multiple such trucking firms have been cited, according to the Hindustan Times, in February, as being out of compliance with the regulation of the temporary foreign workers programme and either fined or prohibited such hiring by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

“The growth of unsafe and unethical trucking fleets undermining lawful and compliant cross-border operators must end. These ownership groups endanger and abuse the labour rights of the truck drivers they hire by exposing them to unsafe working conditions and other unmanageable requirements, including driving commercial vehicles they are not qualified to operate,” the CTA stressed.

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