The Claim

Oversaw plummeting traffic fatalities across the country, in part as a result of President Trump’s mass deportations and removal of non-English speaking commercial truck drivers.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two factual components and one causal assertion: (1) traffic fatalities declined significantly (“plummeting”) during 2025; (2) this decline was caused “in part” by mass deportations; (3) it was caused “in part” by the removal of non-English speaking commercial truck drivers. The causal assertion explicitly connects immigration enforcement and the removal of a specific demographic group — non-English-speaking truck drivers — to improved road safety.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That non-English-speaking truck drivers were causing significant numbers of traffic fatalities. That immigrants — specifically those who don’t speak English — represent a road safety threat that deportation resolves. That removing these drivers from the road was a meaningful contributor to a national trend affecting tens of thousands of deaths. The word “plummeting” implies a dramatic, exceptional decline attributable to administration action, rather than the continuation of a multi-year trend that began in mid-2022.

What is conspicuously absent?

The claim omits: (1) that traffic fatalities have been declining since Q2 2022 — through the entirety of the Biden administration’s final two years — representing 14 consecutive quarterly declines before this claim was published; (2) that the National Safety Council, NHTSA, IIHS, and every major safety organization attributes the decline to vehicle safety technology, road infrastructure improvements, the Safe System Approach, law enforcement partnerships, and the correction of pandemic-era behavioral spikes — not immigration enforcement; (3) that FMCSA’s own data shows non-domiciled CDL holders represent 5% of all CDL holders but only 0.2% of fatal crashes — meaning they are involved in fatal crashes at a lower rate than other drivers; (4) that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals noted this statistical discrepancy when staying the non-domiciled CDL rule; (5) that the DOT itself acknowledged “insufficient evidence” to prove immigrants drive more dangerously; (6) that the specific California crash the administration repeatedly cited to justify its truck driver crackdown was caused by DUI, not language proficiency; (7) that this is the same policy analyzed in Item #26, repackaged with a more extreme causal claim; (8) that the 8,953 drivers placed out of service for English proficiency violations represent a tiny fraction of the 3.5 million CDL workforce and an even smaller fraction of the 230+ million licensed drivers in the United States.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

Traffic fatalities did decline significantly in 2025, but the trend began in mid-2022 and accelerated through 2023 and 2024. NHTSA’s early estimates show an 8.2% decline in the first half of 2025 (17,140 deaths vs. 18,680 in H1 2024) and a 6.4% decline in the first nine months (27,365 vs. 29,245). The National Safety Council estimates the full-year 2025 total at 37,810 deaths — a 12% decrease from 2024. However, this continues a trajectory that began in Q2 2022: fatalities peaked at 43,230 in 2021 and have declined through each subsequent year (42,721 in 2022, 40,901 in 2023, 39,345 in 2024, ~37,810 in 2025). The Q3 2025 estimate represents the 14th consecutive quarterly decline. [^063-a1]

Neither NHTSA, the NSC, IIHS, nor any major safety research organization attributes the fatality decline to immigration enforcement, deportation, or removal of foreign truck drivers. NHTSA attributes the decline to “close collaboration with state and local partners, especially law enforcement.” The NSC credits the Road to Zero Coalition, safer road infrastructure, vehicle design improvements, the Safe System Approach, and proven safety technologies including speed cameras, intelligent speed assistance, and automatic emergency braking. The IIHS identifies the primary causes of fatalities as speeding (29% of deaths), seatbelt non-compliance, distraction, and impairment. None of these organizations mention immigration or deportation in their analyses of 2025 traffic fatality trends. [^063-a2]

FMCSA’s own data shows non-domiciled CDL holders are involved in fatal crashes at a lower rate than other CDL holders. Non-domiciled CDL holders represent approximately 5% of all CDL holders but are involved in only 0.2% of fatal crashes. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals noted this discrepancy when issuing an administrative stay of the non-domiciled CDL rule on November 10, 2025, observing that “FMCSA’s own data appears to indicate that the CDL holders excluded by the rule are involved in fatal crashes at a lower rate than CDL holders who are not excluded.” [^063-a3]

The DOT itself acknowledged “insufficient evidence” connecting immigration status to crash risk. In publishing the September 2025 interim final rule on non-domiciled CDLs, the Transportation Department stated it had “insufficient evidence” to prove that certain kinds of immigrants drive more dangerously than other drivers. FMCSA acknowledged “insufficient data to quantifiably determine that non-domiciled CDL holders pose a disproportionate safety risk.” The administration justified the restrictions by citing 17 high-profile fatal crashes rather than statistical analysis. [^063-a4]

Strong Inferences

The causal claim — that deportation and removal of non-English-speaking drivers contributed to the fatality decline — is unsupported by any evidence and contradicted by the available data. The fatality decline trend began in Q2 2022, predating Trump’s inauguration by over two and a half years. The 14 consecutive quarterly declines represent a continuous trajectory from the pandemic-era spike. The approximately 8,953 drivers placed out of service for English proficiency violations (beginning June 25, 2025, when enforcement took effect) represent 0.26% of the 3.5 million CDL workforce and an infinitesimal fraction of the 230+ million licensed drivers on American roads. Even if every one of those 8,953 drivers had been personally responsible for a fatal crash (which none were documented to be), the effect would be statistically invisible against the baseline of approximately 37,810 annual traffic deaths. The non-domiciled CDL population’s 0.2% involvement in fatal crashes — below their 5% share of CDL holders — means this population is, if anything, safer than average. [^063-a5]

The high-profile crash cases the administration cites to justify its policy actually undermine its own argument. The most prominent case — the October 22, 2025 crash in Ontario, California that killed three people — involved a driver charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated (DUI), not language-related impairment. The administration cited this DUI crash to justify English language proficiency enforcement — a logical non sequitur. The 17 fatal crashes DOT cited involving non-domiciled drivers in 2025, resulting in 30 deaths, represent approximately 0.34% of all fatal truck crashes — well below the 5% share of non-domiciled CDL holders. These cases are tragic but statistically demonstrate that this population is underrepresented in crash data, not overrepresented. [^063-a6]

This claim is the most explicitly xenophobic item on the entire “365 wins” list, attributing a complex, multi-causal safety trend to the removal of a specific ethnic and linguistic demographic. The phrase “non-English speaking commercial truck drivers” identifies a group by their language and, by extension, their national origin. The claim asserts — without evidence — that removing people who don’t speak English from roads reduces fatalities. This is a scapegoating framework: taking a real positive trend (declining fatalities), identifying a vulnerable group (immigrant truck drivers), and asserting a causal connection that no data supports and that the government’s own agency has acknowledged it cannot demonstrate. [^063-a7]

California’s 40% fatality decline — the largest of any state — directly contradicts the claim’s logic. California rescinded 17,000 immigrant truck driver licenses in 2025 and has approximately 61,000 immigrant-held trucking licenses at risk. If immigrant truck drivers were a significant cause of traffic fatalities, California — with its large immigrant driver population — should have worse outcomes, not better. Instead, California achieved the largest traffic fatality reduction in the nation (-40%), and its commercial driver fatal crash rate remains nearly 40% lower than the national average. [^063-a8]

Informed Speculation

The inclusion of this claim in the “365 wins” list — explicitly connecting mass deportation to traffic safety — likely serves a political narrative purpose rather than a data-driven policy claim. By attributing a real positive trend (declining fatalities) to immigration enforcement, the administration retroactively justifies deportation as a public safety measure across multiple domains. This mirrors a broader pattern (see Item #26) of repackaging immigration enforcement as safety policy. The “in part” qualifier provides rhetorical cover: it claims only partial attribution, making the assertion technically unfalsifiable while encouraging the audience to draw a stronger conclusion.

The claim may also represent an escalation from Item #26. Where #26 claimed the specific policy action (English proficiency enforcement), #63 claims the downstream outcome (reduced fatalities) — building a causal chain that the data does not support. The escalation from “we enforced a regulation” to “we saved lives by removing these people” is a rhetorical amplification with no new evidentiary basis.

Structural Analysis

Stated vs. revealed preferences: The stated purpose is traffic safety. But if the administration genuinely believed non-English-speaking truck drivers caused significant fatalities, it would: cite crash correlation data (it has none); commission FMCSA research on the question (it acknowledged insufficient data); restrict the border commercial zone exemption where drivers operate without English proficiency enforcement (it didn’t); and promote ESL training for existing drivers rather than simply removing them (it didn’t). The revealed preference is to attribute a positive trend to immigration enforcement, regardless of causation.

The attribution problem: Traffic fatalities have declined for 14 consecutive quarters, beginning in Q2 2022. The Trump administration took office in January 2025. The English proficiency out-of-service enforcement took effect June 25, 2025. By the time the policy could have had any effect, fatalities had already been declining for 12 consecutive quarters. Claiming credit for a pre-existing trend is the classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Moreover, the NSC, NHTSA, and IIHS uniformly attribute the decline to vehicle safety technology, infrastructure improvements, and behavioral factors — not immigration policy.

The denominator problem: The claim implies non-English-speaking truck drivers are a significant cause of traffic fatalities. The denominator matters: approximately 8,953 drivers were placed out of service for English proficiency violations out of 3.5 million CDL holders (0.26%). Traffic fatalities totaled approximately 37,810 in 2025. The claim asserts that removing 0.26% of CDL holders — who were involved in fatal crashes at a rate below average — meaningfully contributed to a 12% decline in 37,810 deaths. The math does not work.

Follow the money: The enforcement removes drivers from a workforce already 60,000-80,000 drivers short, increasing freight rates and delivery costs. The beneficiaries are domestic trucking operators who face less competition and can charge more. The losers are consumers paying higher prices, supply chain-dependent industries, and the removed drivers and their families.

Cui bono: This claim serves the administration’s narrative that immigration enforcement produces broad public safety benefits. By attributing traffic fatality declines to deportation, the administration transforms a transportation safety trend into an immigration success story — justifying continued enforcement escalation.

The padding lens: This claim takes Item #26’s underlying action (English proficiency enforcement) and claims a much larger outcome (national traffic fatality reduction). Where Item #26 at least described a real policy action, Item #63 fabricates a causal relationship between that action and a nationwide trend to pad the “wins” list with a safety outcome the administration did not cause.

Context the Framing Omits

Traffic fatalities have been declining since mid-2022 — through the Biden administration. The 14 consecutive quarterly declines began in Q2 2022. The trajectory: 43,230 deaths in 2021 (peak), 42,721 in 2022, 40,901 in 2023, 39,345 in 2024, ~37,810 in 2025. The 2025 decline is the continuation of a three-year trend, not a new phenomenon attributable to any action taken after January 20, 2025.

Safety experts attribute the decline to vehicle technology, road design, and behavioral correction from the pandemic spike. The NSC specifically credits automatic emergency braking, speed cameras, intelligent speed assistance, the Safe System Approach, and the Road to Zero Coalition. IIHS identifies speeding, seatbelt non-use, distraction, and alcohol as the primary fatality drivers — all behavioral factors unrelated to immigration. The pandemic-era spike (2020-2021) resulted from emptier roads encouraging risky driving; the subsequent decline represents a correction from that anomaly combined with ongoing vehicle safety improvements.

The government’s own data contradicts the claim. Non-domiciled CDL holders: 5% of CDL holders, 0.2% of fatal crashes. FMCSA: “insufficient data” to link immigration status to crash risk. DOT: “insufficient evidence” that immigrants drive more dangerously. The D.C. Circuit Court noted the data contradicts the safety rationale. The administration cites 17 fatal crashes among non-domiciled drivers (0.34% of truck fatalities) while this population holds 5% of CDLs — meaning they are safer than average by the government’s own numbers.

The California paradox. California — with the largest immigrant truck driver population and the most licenses rescinded — achieved a 40% fatality decline, the largest of any state. Its commercial driver fatal crash rate is nearly 40% lower than the national average. If the claim’s logic held, California should be the most dangerous state for truck crashes, not the safest.

No mechanism connects deportation to traffic safety. The claim offers no explanation for how deporting people reduces traffic fatalities. Deportees are not predominantly commercial drivers. The vast majority of traffic fatalities involve passenger vehicles, not commercial trucks. Speed, impairment, distraction, and seatbelt non-use — not driver immigration status — are the established causes.

Verdict

Factual core: The first component — that traffic fatalities declined significantly in 2025 — is true. The NSC estimates a 12% decline. However, this is the continuation of a trend that began in Q2 2022, not a new development. The second and third components — that the decline was caused “in part” by mass deportations and removal of non-English-speaking truck drivers — are false. No data supports this causal claim. The government’s own agency acknowledges insufficient evidence. The affected population is involved in fatal crashes at a lower rate than other drivers. Every major safety organization attributes the decline to vehicle technology, road design, and behavioral factors.

Framing as “win”: Deeply misleading. The claim takes a real positive trend (declining fatalities), which began years before this administration and is attributed by experts to vehicle safety technology and infrastructure improvements, and falsely credits it to the administration’s most controversial policy (mass deportation) while scapegoating a specific linguistic and ethnic group (non-English-speaking truck drivers) without evidence.

What a reader should understand: Traffic fatalities did decline approximately 12% in 2025 — that is real and important. But the decline has been continuous since mid-2022, through the Biden administration, representing 14 consecutive quarterly drops driven by vehicle safety technology (automatic emergency braking, crash avoidance systems), road infrastructure improvements, and the correction of pandemic-era behavioral spikes. The claim that this trend was caused “in part” by deporting immigrants and removing non-English-speaking truck drivers is contradicted by the government’s own data: non-domiciled CDL holders represent 5% of all CDL holders but only 0.2% of fatal crashes — they crash at a lower rate than other drivers. The DOT itself acknowledged “insufficient evidence” linking immigration status to crash risk. The D.C. Circuit Court noted the data contradicts the safety rationale. The approximately 8,953 drivers placed out of service for English proficiency violations represent 0.26% of the CDL workforce — a statistically invisible contribution to a trend involving 37,810 annual deaths. California, with the largest immigrant truck driver population, achieved the largest state-level fatality reduction (-40%). This claim does not just misattribute a trend; it scapegoats a specific ethnic and linguistic group for a complex safety phenomenon, using the language of public safety to stigmatize immigrants without evidence.

Cross-References

• Item #26: “Enforced English-language proficiency requirements for commercial truck drivers” — Item #63 escalates Item #26’s claim from describing the policy action to claiming a downstream safety outcome (reduced fatalities) that the data does not support. The same 8,953 out-of-service drivers, the same 0.31% fatal crash involvement, the same border zone exemption — but with a much larger causal claim.
• Item #2: “Removed more than 2.6 million illegal aliens” — Item #63 attributes traffic safety improvements to this broader deportation campaign, despite no mechanism connecting deportation to traffic fatality reduction.
• Item #3: “Carried out over 650,000 arrests, detentions, and deportations” — Same attribution pattern: claiming a specific positive outcome from a general enforcement action without establishing causation.

Sources

NHTSA. “NHTSA Reports Sharp Drop in Traffic Fatalities in First Half of 2025.” Press release, September 17, 2025. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-reports-sharp-drop-traffic-fatalities-first-half-2025

NHTSA. “Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First 9 Months of 2025.” CrashStats Research Note, December 2025. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813778

NHTSA. “Traffic Fatalities Decreased in the First Quarter of 2025.” Press release, July 2025. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-fatalities-decreased-first-quarter-2025

National Safety Council. “National Safety Council Projects 12% Decrease in U.S. Traffic Fatalities in 2025.” Press release, February 24, 2026. https://www.nsc.org/newsroom/nsc-predicts-12-percent-decrease-traffic-deaths

IIHS. “Fatality Facts 2023: Yearly Snapshot.” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 2024. https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot

NHTSA. “Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2024.” CrashStats Research Note, April 2025. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813737

CalMatters. “Trump alters trucking regulations, targeting immigrant drivers.” November 2025. https://calmatters.org/economy/2025/11/immigrant-drivers/

Niskanen Center. “The DOT’s trucking crackdown isn’t about safety — it’s about immigration.” 2025. https://www.niskanencenter.org/dot-trucking-crackdown-immigration/

BMD Law. “DOT Non-Domiciled CDL Rule.” 2026. https://www.bmdllc.com/resources/blog/dot-non-domiciled-cdl-rule/

NPR. “The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant truckers shifts into higher gear.” March 12, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/03/12/nx-s1-5736253/immigrant-truckers-trump-crackdown

PBS NewsHour. “Deadly crash in California renews federal criticism of immigrant truck drivers.” October 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/deadly-crash-in-california-renews-federal-criticism-of-immigrant-truck-drivers

FreightWaves. “The Loophole That Killed 30 People Just Got Closed. Now What?” February 2026. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-loophole-that-killed-30-people-just-got-closed-now-what

White House. “Mass Deportations Are Improving Americans’ Quality of Life.” January 15, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/01/mass-deportations-are-improving-americans-quality-of-life/

CKF Law. “Are Foreign Truckers Making the Roads Unsafe?” 2025. https://www.ckflaw.com/blog/are-foreign-truckers-making-the-roads-unsafe/

COGO Insurance. “Trucking Crashes Down In 2025 But DOT/FMCSA Target Foreign-Born CDL Drivers For ‘Safety.’” 2025. https://cogoinsurance.com/non-domiciled-cdl-drivers/

AASHTO Journal. “NHTSA: Roadway Deaths Drop in First Half of 2025.” September 2025. https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/nhtsa-roadway-deaths-drop-in-first-half-of-2025/

Carrier Management. “Sharpest Drop in U.S. Road Deaths Seen Since 2008: NHTSA.” September 17, 2025. https://www.carriermanagement.com/news/2025/09/17/279535.htm

Angelus News. “Experts dispute White House claims mass deportations improve Americans’ lives.” February 2026. https://angelusnews.com/news/nation/white-house-mass-deportations/