A three-day federal operation resulted in 137 individuals detained or arrested across four Midwestern states in the context of the second wave of the Operation Highway Shield, a joint initiative by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) aimed at unqualified truck drivers or those in irregular immigration status.
The operation took place between July 28 and 30 in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio, involving agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division of ICE, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and state highway patrols.
Of the 137 individuals detained, 51 were immigrants in an irregular situation, including 21 drivers holding commercial driver's licenses (CDL) that were not issued in-state, granted by California and New York to individuals who did not reside in those states, a practice that the federal government considers irregular.
The others 86 were arrested for dangerous behavior, including incidents of road rage and domestic violence.
In addition to the arrests, the operation removed 766 drivers and vehicles deemed unsafe from circulation, issued 36 citations for failing to pass the competency tests in English, and recovered nearly one million dollars in stolen cargo.
The preliminary results were announced on Tuesday by the Secretary of DHS, Markwayne Mullin, and the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy.
"When illegal immigrants are behind the wheel of 18-wheeler trucks, they put American lives at risk," said Mullin, who highlighted that more than 800 dangerous truck drivers have been removed from the country's roads during both waves of the operation.
Duffy, for his part, was more straightforward in his warning: "If you continue to operate a cargo truck illegally, your days on the streets of America are numbered."
This second operation adds to the one carried out in Florida from March 23 to 26, which included over 3,300 inspections of commercial vehicles, 35 criminal arrests, and 42 immigration actions.
In July, the DHS and the DOT also announced a specific partnership to investigate fraud in CDL schools.
The Cuban community in the United States, with a significant presence in the freight transportation industry, has been impacted by these operations.
In September 2025, a Cuban truck driver was detained in Oklahoma during a joint raid by ICE and the Highway Patrol of that state, in which more than 120 undocumented immigrants were arrested, 91 of whom had a CDL.
Months later, a Cuban truck driver with legal residency alerted the community about ICE checkpoints on the I-75, warning that carrying a residency card was essential: "If I hadn't had this today, I would have been taken into custody."
The tightening of controls in the freight transportation sector is partly a response to high-profile fatal accidents involving foreign truck drivers in irregular situations, which led the DOT to restrict, in September 2025, the eligibility for obtaining a CDL as a non-citizen to holders of H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visas, with a maximum validity of one year and mandatory immigration verification in federal databases.
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