U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order requiring truck drivers in the United States to be English-speaking, a requirement that has concerned Sikh advocacy groups.
The groups argue that the requirement could disproportionately affect Sikh truckers, potentially creating undue barriers to employment and having a discriminatory impact on the community.
The executive order titled Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America's Truck Drivers reaffirms that the economy, security, and very way of life of this nation rely on truck drivers. The order argues that English proficiency is a necessary safety requirement for professional drivers.
"Drivers need to be able to read and understand traffic signs, talk to traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoint, and cargo weight-limit station officers," the order states, adding that drivers also need to be able to provide feedback to employers and customers in English.
While the directive recognizes that federal law makes it the drivers' responsibility to be able to read and speak English well enough to understand signs on the highway, respond to official questions, and complete reports, it quotes that this benchmark has not been meaningfully enforced in the last few years, raising concerns about safety on US roads.
"My administration will uphold the law to protect the safety of American truckers, drivers, passengers, and others, including by continuing the safety enforcement regulations which require anyone driving a commercial vehicle to be properly qualified and proficient in our national language, English," Trump stated in the order.
The Sikh Coalition, a civil rights group, was highly concerned with the executive order and feared that it would hurt the Sikh community, which is well-represented in the American trucking industry. About 150,000 Sikars are employed in trucking, of whom 90% are drivers, according to estimates by The Economist.
The Sikh Coalition highlighted that Sikhs have helped to mitigate the driver shortage that has confronted the U.S. trucking industry, with over 30,000 Sikh drivers entering the country between 2016 and 2018. "Our community has plugged a critical gap in the massive need for drivers and reducing the pain of driver shortages," the organization stated.
While the Sikh Coalition waits to examine the legal effects of the order, they were concerned the mandate would be a discriminatory hurdle for Sikh drivers and other eligible individuals who may not speak English.
The executive order further says that the Trump administration policy is to "support America's truckers and protect our highways by enforcing the commonsense English-language requirement for commercial motor vehicle drivers" and remove "needless regulatory overhangs."
The order directs Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to locate and take action to improve truckers' working conditions within 60 days.
Responding, Duffy stated the Transportation Department would roll back the Obama administration policy that eased enforcement of English proficiency (ELP) regulations for commercial truck drivers.
He emphasized that federal law clearly states that operators who are unable to read and speak English properly, or unable to read and understand signs on roads, are not qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle. "This common sense standard should never have been waived," Duffy went on to say.
The Transportation Department also reported that if the standards were not implemented, safety problems resulted, like when the lack of sign reading or English proficiency among drivers could have resulted in fatal crashes.
In 2016, the Obama administration had instructed inspectors not to place commercial motor vehicle operators out of service for lacking the English proficiency needed, and Trump's executive order now appears to reverse this policy.
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