EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — President Donald Trump marked his first 100 days in office with new executive orders that address illegal immigration and border trade among other things.
On Monday, Trump ordered all truck drivers in the U.S. to be proficient in English.
Under the “Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers” order, truck drivers should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers.” And “drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”
“This is common sense,” says the order.
Truck drivers with whom Border Report spoke were split on the order. One driver said he agreed that truckers should know some English. Another said that as long as people do their job to get trade moving, it shouldn’t matter whether or not a driver speaks English.
The second driver added that he was uncomfortable with an officer possibly pulling him over and giving him an English test.
Another order issued this week targeted so-called “sanctuary cities.”
The “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens orders states and federal officials to publish lists of jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal officials’ efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants.
Once identified, according to the order, federal agencies will determine which federal funds, including grants and contracts, those jurisdictions receive and terminate them.
On the other hand, a growing number of local police departments and state agencies have joined Trump’s push for mass deportations.
According to the Associated Press, in December, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had 135 agreements across 21 states that allow local police to make immigration arrests and detain people for immigration violations. That number has since jumped to 506 deals across 38 states, with an additional 74 agencies pending approval.
This week’s orders were just two of the more than 175 immigration-related actions Trump has implemented in the first 100 days of his second term.
During his first administration, Trump implemented fewer than 30 immigration actions during his first 100 days in office, the report says.
President Joe Biden implemented 94 actions during his first 100 days in office.
On this week’s episode of Border Report Live, the correspondents examine some of Trump’s executive orders, his crackdown on illegal immigration, as well tariffs and their effects on the border.
An estimated 500,000 people so far this year have been deported. That’s fewer than the 685,000 deportations under the Biden administration in Fiscal Year 2024, which ended Sept. 30, the report found.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are an estimated 13.7 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
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