Kamal Ghorui
When California cancelled thousands of commercial trucking licences a few months ago, Sikh owner Bikramjeet Singh Gill watched his Stockton truck yard fall silent. Trucks that once rolled out each morning now sit idle, unused and unpaid.Gill runs Gillson Trucking Inc. and said around 35 of his immigrant drivers were told lastyear that the California Department of Motor Vehicles was cancelling their commercial driver’s licences. They were gone overnight.“We have lost nearly $2 million in the last four months while paying $200,000 monthly to the bank and insurers for 35 parked trucks. The banks don’t wait,” Gill was quoted as saying to CalMatters.The cancellations followed a September audit by the Trump administration, which cracked down on over 17,000 California commercial licences held by immigrants. The audit found that some licences had expiration dates that extended beyond drivers’ legal authorisation to live and work in US. California later notified those drivers that their licences would be revoked.New federal rules introduced last year could eventually take away licences from up to 61,000 immigrant truck drivers across the country.The impact has fallen heavily on California’s Sikh community. Industry groups estimate about 35 per cent of the state’s commercial drivers are Sikh, many of them based in the Central Valley. Truck driving has long provided stable income for Sikh immigrants who often took loans and had to pay debt to settle in US.The Sikh Coalition has filed a lawsuit challenging California’s decision to cancel non-domicile commercial licences. The group says the move unfairly targets immigrant drivers.“When someone loses their CDL, they lose their livelihood,” said Munmeeth Kaur, the Sikh Coalition’s legal director.The Trump administration has defended the crackdown and has threatened to withhold transportation funding from California over ‘delays’ in cancelling licences.US transportation secretary Sean Duffy earlier this month said: “It’s a day for Gavin Newsom and California. Our demands were simple: follow the rules, revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers, and fix the system so this never happens again.”Gill said in October, nearly 100 trucks sat parked at his depot.“It totally devastated us,” he said. He added: “Slowly, some drivers returned to work because they also have mortgages and financial obligations. We have hired green card or U.S. citizen drivers.”Gill said companies followed state rules when hiring. “Acording to the law, if someone has work authorization and valid licenses then we can hire him. We can’t discriminate against anyone,” he said.Fear has spread among drivers after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested truckers at inspection sites. “Our driver was recently arrested by ICE while standing at a truck stop in Minnesota”, Gill said. The driver remains in detention.Drivers are also removing Sikh imagery from trucks amid fears of harassment. “Every driver displays pictures or signs representing what inspires him,” Gill said. He added: “Now they removed them. The drivers say people record videos of their trucks and post them on social media or honk at them aggressively.”
