Steve Metzer
Tulsa World Capitol Bureau Staff Writer
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OKLAHOMA CITY — Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Tipton said Tuesday that he was shocked at the high percentage of commercial truck drivers and others contacted recently by troopers on Interstate 40 who turned out to be illegal immigrants.
“I was shocked at the number of different countries, but probably where I was the most shocked was that number — 25.9% — of contacts were not here legally — a quarter of the people that we came into contact with didn’t have legal status to be here,” Tipton said.
Tipton made the comment during a press conference held to provide details on an operation conducted Sept. 22-25 centered primarily at a mandatory “port of entry” stop for truckers on Interstate 40 just east of the Texas-Oklahoma line. Troopers also made some arrests of illegal immigrants who were pulled over for traffic violations.
Out of approximately 520 contacts made, Tipton said 120 commercial truck drivers, co-drivers or others ended up being detained for being in the country illegally.
Subsequent investigation revealed that many of those detained had prior convictions for crimes, including human trafficking and drug smuggling. Some had been arrested and deported before but had entered the United States again illegally. Most, if not all, had entered the country from the southern border. They represented numerous countries, including China, Russia and Ukraine, among others.
Two of those detained turned out to be Chinese nationals who had been working at a nearby marijuana farm, Tipton said. Another stop initiated after routine traffic violation netted five illegal immigrants traveling together in a private vehicle.
He said troopers, working in partnership with U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement agents and with assistance from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Department of Corrections apprehended approximately 90 commercial motor vehicle drivers or co-drivers.
All of those detained were taken to ICE facilities either in Oklahoma City or Tulsa, with some later moved to other ICE facilities in the state or in Texas.
Tipton said that until recently, federal law allowed states to issue “non-domiciled” commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants in possession of employment authorization documents. Recently, however, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a new rule requiring states to verify “evidence of lawful immigration status” before issuing CDLs, he said.
Tipton said some states also have previously issued commercial driver’s licenses “indiscriminately” to illegal immigrants.
Of those detained in Oklahoma, 44 had licenses issued by California, 14 had documents issued by New York, 12 from Pennsylvania and 11 from Illinois.
“This is definitely a serious threat to public safety,” Tipton said. “It’s very problematic not knowing who these people are driving these large trucks down the road. You don’t have a minor collision with a commercial motor vehicle, an 80,000-pound vehicle traveling down the road at 70 or 80 miles per hour.”
He said at least five fatal commercial motor vehicle collisions have been reported in the country this year alone involving non-domiciled CDL drivers.
The recent operation was centered around the port of entry checkpoint, a mandatory stop for commercial truck drivers.
“Every commercial motor vehicle that enters into the state has to stop at that port of entry,” Tipton said.
Trucks driven by the illegal immigrants were towed to storage facilities. Tipton said trucking companies would be allowed to recover them after paying relevant fees. At some point in the future, the federal government may be more aggressive in taking “enforcement actions” against companies that employ people with commercial licenses like those carried by the drivers detained in Oklahoma, he said.
In a statement, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the process previously used by some other states in issuing licenses as broken.
“Our system to keep Americans safe has been compromised by issuing commercial trucking licenses to operate 80,000-pound vehicles to foreign drivers who are not lawful citizens,” he said. “The process is broken, a threat to your safety, and a national emergency that requires action right now.”
Tipton said Florida may be the only other state that has undertaken such an operation to get illegal commercial truck drivers off the road. He said similar operations may be conducted again in Oklahoma.
“In Oklahoma, with I-40, I-44 and I-35, we are the crossroads where a lot of that commercial motor vehicle traffic, those large trucks, are moving,” he said. “It’s imperative that we work to ensure public safety.”
steve.metzer@tulsaworld.com
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Steve Metzer
Tulsa World Capitol Bureau Staff Writer
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