WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States has immediately stopped issuing visas for truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday, after a fatal crash raised anger within President Donald Trump’s base.

“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers,” Rubio wrote on X.

“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” he wrote.

Rubio’s action came after a truck driver was charged with killing three people on a highway in Florida while making an illegal U-turn.

Harjinder Singh, who is from India, allegedly entered the United States illegally from Mexico and failed an English examination after the crash, according to federal officials.

The case has gathered wide media attention and has been raised prominently by officials in Florida, controlled by his Trump’s Republican Party, with the lieutenant governor flying to California to extradite Singh personally alongside immigration agents on Thursday.

The crash has taken on a political dimension as Singh received his commercial license and lived in California, which is run by the rival Democratic Party and opposes Trump’s crackdown on immigration.

The Trump administration accused California Governor Gavin Newsom of responsibility as the state issued Singh a license.

Newsom’s office responded that the federal government under Trump had issued Singh his work permit and that California cooperated in extraditing him.

Even before the crash, Republican lawmakers have been taking aim at foreign truckers, pointing to a rising number of crashes without providing evidence of a direct link to immigrants.

In June, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a directive that truck drivers must speak English.

Truck drivers in the United States are required to pass a test for a commercial license that has long included an assessment of whether they are proficient in English on basics such as road signs.

But 2016 guidance under former president Barack Obama, which was reversed by Duffy, told authorities not to take truckers off the road solely on account of language deficiencies.

Meeting demand, the number of foreign-born truck drivers in the United States more than doubled between 2000 and 2021 to 720,000, according to federal statistics.

Foreign-born drivers now make up 18 percent of the industry — in line with the United States labor market as a whole, but a departure for a profession long identified with the white working class.

More than half of the foreign-born drivers come from Latin America with sizable numbers in recent years from India and Eastern European nations, especially Ukraine, according to industry groups.