Nearly 100 Illegal Alien Truckers Apprehended in DHS Operation - Most Had CDLs from Blue States
Federal agents arrested 95 illegal immigrant truck drivers in Arizona this month, and most of them were carrying commercial licenses issued by California.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection ran the operation in the Yuma Sector between Aug. 10 and Aug. 14, Fox News reported.
All 95 drivers had state-issued commercial driver’s licenses.
While 76 of those CDLs came from California and six came from New York, the rest were issued by a small number of other states.
The Department of Homeland Security highlighted the California figure in a post Monday, saying it would keep working to get illegal truckers off U.S. roads.
95 ILLEGAL ALIEN TRUCK DRIVERS ARRESTED.
Working alongside law enforcement partners, @CBP arrested the truckers in Arizona — 76 of whom had driver’s licenses issued by CALIFORNIA.
We won’t stop fighting to get illegal alien truckers OFF our nation’s roads.… https://t.co/OojGPH3lHC
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) August 31, 2026
Acting Chief Patrol Agent Dustin Caudle said the agency is trying to protect the public from “unlicensed or untrained drivers” as well as from smuggling groups.
The trucker arrests were not the only results.
Agents also broke up two human smuggling events, taking four smugglers and 17 smuggled migrants into custody, Fox News reported.
They seized 74 pounds of methamphetamine and 169 pounds of marijuana.
In all, 143 suspects from 18 countries were arrested in the broader operation, according to the report.
DHS has not said how many of the 95 will be prosecuted, removed, or both.
The drivers’ individual criminal histories were not listed in the first public accounting.
Commercial licenses are supposed to show that a driver passed federal and state testing for heavy trucks. A license from a blue state does not answer whether the holder is legally in the country.
California has been at the center of that fight for more than a year.
The Western Journal has reported on Florida’s plan to push back on California CDLs after fatal crashes.
Texas announced its own crackdown on illegal truckers.
Separate coverage has followed crash cases, including an illegal trucker in an eight-car wreck and a driver whose sentence was cut under California law after a fatal freeway crash.
President Donald Trump has also floated replacing illegal truckers with American veterans.
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