ICE arrested a Cuban national driving a commercial vehicle on an expired license — an illegal alien with a final deportation order who was still behind the wheel of a semi-truck on American highways.
The August 6 arrest of Jose Carlos Valdivia-Vera in Florida exposes the enforcement gap that puts every American driver at risk: people who have no legal right to be in the country are operating heavy commercial machinery on the same roads your family travels every day.
According to Breitbart News, Valdivia-Vera had been issued a temporary one-year Commercial Driver's License that expired on June 6. He had also been issued a final deportation order by a federal immigration judge. He originally entered the United States as an unknown got-away — meaning he was never processed or screened.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin didn't mince words: "Every time an illegal alien is behind the wheel of a semi-truck, they are putting countless American lives in danger."
Mullin credited ICE's Homeland Security Investigations agents for getting Valdivia-Vera off the road and said he "will be removed from our country and will not be able to endanger innocent lives on our streets." He pledged the administration will "relentlessly pursue any and all illegal alien truck drivers and the companies that employ them."
This isn't an isolated case. The Trump administration has been exposing a growing problem: illegal aliens and foreign nationals driving massive semi-trucks on American highways without knowing English or understanding U.S. road signage. In July, 33-year-old illegal alien Michael Bon of Haiti allegedly caused a crash that killed Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. Bon had been issued a commercial driver's license by Massachusetts. He flew into the U.S. from Haiti in July 2024 with no immigration status, admitted through the Biden administration's CHNV parole program — which flew hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals directly into American airports.
Meanwhile, the establishment press couldn't be bothered. TMZ, a major media outlet, spent its news cycle on a copyright lawsuit against Beyoncé over an unauthorized music sample. The same media ecosystem that buries stories about illegal aliens driving semis on expired licenses will give wall-to-wall coverage to celebrity legal spats. That's the landscape: American lives on the highway don't click the way pop culture does.
The question isn't just how Valdivia-Vera got a commercial license in the first place — it's how many more like him are still out there, right now, barreling down the interstate.
