{"id":546603,"date":"2026-03-26T15:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546603\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T15:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:05:08","slug":"immigrant-trucker-returns-to-war-torn-ukraine-rather-than-risk-ice-encounter-i-preferred-going-back-home-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546603\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigrant trucker returns to war-torn Ukraine rather than risk ICE encounter: \u2018I preferred going back home\u2019 | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karina Krainova, who worked as a trucker in the US after fleeing Russia<\/a>\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, where she is from, rushed to the closest motor vehicle\u2019s office last fall, just days after the US transportation department tightened<\/a> commercial driver\u2019s license requirements for immigrant drivers like her.<\/p>\n

She was already afraid of being deported back to Ukraine<\/a> as the war rages on. She had entered the United States legally in 2024 under a Biden administration<\/a> program that granted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians a safe haven.<\/p>\n

But Krainova\u2019s fortunes changed with Donald Trump\u2019s second term as he made it harder for all immigrants to obtain and keep their licenses.<\/p>\n

Now, thousands are braced for losing<\/a> their licenses after new rules kicked in last week, according to a document<\/a> by the transportation department.<\/p>\n

Krainova, 39, had already felt the blow. She said she enrolled in truck driving classes in January 2025, and was proud to pass a driving exam in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she lived at the time, the following month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to clarify the new rules because I didn\u2019t want to be stopped by ICE<\/a> [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers at a gas station or on the road and be placed in detention,\u201d said Krainova in a phone conversation with the Guardian from Odesa in southern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was asked to show my license and I did and I said I had work authorization and that I had paroled into the US. Then they asked me if I had a green card and I said no. After that, a supervisor came and said I couldn\u2019t drive a truck and that my license would be canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to documents shared with the Guardian, the expiration of her license was set for 21 October 2026, the same date her immigration status was set to lapse if she had not been able to renew it.<\/p>\n

The South Carolina motor vehicles department confirmed that Krainova\u2019s license was canceled on 6 October 2025, almost a year prior to its official expiration date. Another 135 immigrant truck drivers have seen their licenses canceled in South Carolina alone, according to the office, and the picture is similar in many other states.<\/p>\n

While the Biden-era program, known as Uniting for Ukraine<\/a>, gave Krainova and more than 200,000 Ukrainians renewable work permits under the parole policy, it did not place them on a path to permanent residency or citizenship.<\/p>\n

But the rule that ended up affecting Krainova\u2019s immediate future was just one of so many parts of the broader crackdown on refugees and asylum seekers with work authorizations throughout the entire country. Most recently, at the State of the Union<\/a> address, Trump asked lawmakers to ban states from granting new driving licenses to immigrants in the country illegally.<\/p>\n

Last November, a federal court in Washington DC halted an interim version of the Trump administration<\/a> restrictions that would severely limit immigrants from obtaining commercial driver\u2019s licenses.<\/p>\n

But by then, it was too late. Krainova had already returned to Ukraine<\/a>, out of fear of being arrested by ICE and sent to a detention center.<\/p>\n

Krainova said that when she saw that her license was being canceled, she thought it was best for her to return to Odesa. She had hoped her partner would have joined her in the US at some point. Instead, she went back to him in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI preferred going back home to my husband than being detained for months and being treated the way other immigrants are in those detention centers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When speaking about life back at home, she talked of the chaos of patchy energy supplies and times of comfort for some, while others had bombs landing on their homes. As winter ended and the war entered its fourth year, Russia<\/a> continues attacking residential areas of Odesa.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cFor the past two weeks, the temperature hasn\u2019t dropped below freezing, so we have electricity turned on most of the day and it is much easier to get warm at home. Trams and buses are still out of service for another month, [and] unfortunately, there have been many attacks on residential buildings where civilians live.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s efforts to restrict noncitizens from getting commercial driver\u2019s licenses came after an undocumented immigrant from India, who had obtained his license in California, was charged with three counts<\/a> of vehicular homicide while making an illegal U-turn in Florida last year.<\/p>\n

As a result of this incident, Florida now requires<\/a> all commercial driver\u2019s license exams to be administered in English only. More Republican-led states are considering<\/a> following suit. Meanwhile in California, tests are still offered in 20 languages. The federal government has recently required<\/a> the California department of motor vehicles to cancel licenses of thousands of immigrant truck drivers there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis federal administration is using their war on immigration to remove qualified, hardworking commercial drivers from our workforce who meet language and safety rules,\u201d Steve Gordon, the state\u2019s DMV director, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The US transportation department\u2019s secretary, Sean Duffy, previously announced<\/a> that drivers should meet federal requirements to understand English well enough to read road signs and communicate with law enforcement. This guidance was in line with Trump\u2019s executive order signed<\/a> last April.<\/p>\n

The department said in a statement sent to the Guardian: \u201cThe secretary\u2019s number one priority is ensuring the safety of Americans, whether in a car, truck or bus. Under his leadership, the department is taking commonsense approaches to increasing safety conditions on our roads by ensuring drivers operating big rigs and semi-trucks are doing so lawfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat includes having valid immigration status in the US and being able to proficiently communicate in English with law enforcement officials and other drivers. It\u2019s not controversial, it\u2019s common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the November court block, an updated, final version<\/a> of the restrictions went into force last week.<\/p>\n

The trucking industry greatly depends on the immigrant workforce to keep goods moving across the nation. More than 720,000 foreign-born truck drivers help transport about 2.7bn tons of food each year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of them is Serhii Krakivskyi, who in October 2024 was allowed into the US, like Krainova, thanks to the Uniting for Ukraine program and shortly after obtained his commercial driver\u2019s license in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Krakivskyi said he drives about 3,500 miles a week and has been in almost every state as part of his job. During his break on a regular shift, from inside his 18-wheel truck, he told the Guardian he knows of colleagues being pulled over on the road and failing the English test.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do agree with a lot of things that they\u2019re implementing like knowing the language, but it\u2019s not fair that those who speak the language well like me are concerned and nervous on the road,\u201d said Krakivskyi, who worked at the Ukrainian military\u2019s prosecutor\u2019s office in Kyiv prior to migrating to the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy driving record is very clean, I don\u2019t have any tickets \u2013 why are we all being put under the same rule?\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a policy enforcement document<\/a>, in order to evaluate a driver\u2019s compliance with the English proficiency requirement, an officer should conduct an interview and a highway traffic sign recognition assessment, all in English. When drivers don\u2019t respond to inquiries by speaking English sufficiently, the official cites them for a violation, losing the right to work on the road.<\/p>\n

An estimated 9,500 drivers<\/a> have been taken off the roads in recent months for failing English language proficiency requirements alone, according to the federal government.<\/p>\n

Krakivskyi, 38, said that when he arrived in New Jersey, where he currently resides, he started looking into different professions until he chose truck driving based on other Ukrainians\u2019 experiences.<\/p>\n

Because truck driving is one of the most dangerous professions in the country due to risks<\/a> such as fatigue and highway accidents, the job is reportedly<\/a> less appealing to American drivers. Krakivskyi, an immigrant himself, saw an opportunity there. But that opportunity is now at risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Krakivskyi took courses, learned all the parts of the truck and how to recognize road signs, and passed all the exams in English. His commercial driver\u2019s license expires in August 2026, the same expiration date as his parole status that allows him to stay in the country legally.<\/p>\n

Krakivskyi added: \u201cI\u2019m concerned that the questions from a native speaker inspector might be unclear since I\u2019ve studied English at an academic level. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a problem of principle, I think it\u2019s the approach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karina Krainova, who worked as a trucker in the US after fleeing Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, where she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-546603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}