Most Americans recognize that foreigners who are illegal or who can’t read English or road signs shouldn’t be licensed to drive big rigs or school buses — except union bosses who are fighting against it in court.
When the Department of Transportation announced a new emergency rule cracking down on the granting of commercial drivers’ licenses (CDLs) to unqualified, illiterate, or illegal immigrants, most reasonable people cheered.
The action came in the aftermath of two horrific accidents caused by CDL-holding illegal immigrant truck drivers in which numerous people were killed.
Unfortunately, those reasonable people didn’t include union bosses, most notably the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers’ union. Together, they immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the DOT’s actions.
Last week, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted a stay of the rule changes.
The ruling will allow many illegal and illiterate CDL holders to keep on driving — for now.
That judges appointed by Democratic presidents would halt an action of the Trump administration is a surprise to exactly no one, but why would a teachers’ union, of all groups, go out of their way to try to keep dangerous truckers on the road?
According to the petition, AFT is representing the interests of its members, which apparently include “members with non-domiciled licenses.”
Non-domiciled licenses are granted to foreign nationals, but to be eligible, applicants must have legal status, federal work authorization, and meet all requirements for a standard CDL. That latter includes a clean driving record, English language proficiency, and the knowledge and ability to pass a written driving and skills test.
Sadly, though, it has become apparent that many non-domiciled CDL holders are either illegal immigrants, were improperly granted work authorization by the Biden administration, or do not meet federally mandated CDL requirements.
So, who are these non-Americans that are members of the AFT and have non-domiciled CDLs?
Well, as the AFT and the AFSCME proudly tell us in a press release: School bus drivers.
You would think that a union would welcome the opportunity to assure parents and government officials that their bus drivers are all fully legal, fully capable of understanding road signs, and boast the safest possible driving records.
Instead, the response was political — and hyperbolic. Here’s how Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT described the DOT’s efforts to increase highway safety for all drivers:
“For the Trump administration, the cruelty is the point. This is a spiteful and illegal rule issued with no justification except to hurt hundreds of thousands of lawful immigrants with work authorization who only want to build a better life for themselves and their families. Many AFT members require a CDL to work as school bus drivers—and right now we are seeing people turned away from training for these positions. Their American Dream will be dashed or deferred, all because of the pettiness of the president and his advisers.”
Actually, the point is to protect the rest of the driving public from illegal and incompetent CDL holders like Harjinder Singh.
Singh is an illegal immigrant who last August made a sudden illegal U-turn on a Florida highway, causing three people to die. Later, crash investigators found that the Indian native was able to correctly answer just 2 of 12 questions on an English proficiency test and could only properly identify 1 of 4 traffic signs.
The point of DOT actions is also to make sure that those entrusted to drive our children’s school buses are in this country legally and can tell which side of the highway they are supposed to drive on.
That teachers would side with illegal immigrants over schoolchildren isn’t really a surprise to anyone who has been keeping up with the mission of many of America’s public sector unions, especially teachers’ unions.
When the average American thinks of teachers’ unions, they probably assume their time and resources are spent fighting for better schools, higher teacher pay, and greater student safety and learning outcomes.
But that’s not what teachers’ unions actually do, especially not America’s largest unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the AFT.
These teachers’ unions are socialist grift organizations that funnel money to left-wing politicians, champion left-leaning political platforms, lobby against people and policies that try to improve schools, work to indoctrinate students, and deliver railing speeches that sound more like a socialist politician vilifying her opponents than an organization that is supposed to advocate for teachers and children.
Both Weingarten and NEA President Becky Pringle have previously or currently serve as committee members for the Democratic National Committee. Weingarten served there for 23 years.
In keeping with their party’s platform, their priorities are advancing abortion, promoting racial division and climate change policies, indoctrinating students into LGBT ideology, and destroying parental rights.
That’s not me saying that. That’s the unions speaking for themselves.
And they are so opposed to parents having any control over their children that Weingarten and other union heads backed the Department of Justice’s effort to label concerned parents as domestic terrorists.
That’s right: These teachers’ unions would weaponize the FBI and DOJ against parents in order to advance their agenda.
And it’s not just the NEA and the AFT. Local teachers’ unions also put politics and profit before pedagogy.
The point that everyone needs to recognize is this: Teachers’ unions don’t advocate for teachers, and they certainly don’t advocate for students and better schools. Instead, they want to control as much taxpayer money and as many students as possible to advance the left’s agenda.
Meanwhile, too many kids across the nation, particularly in blue cities, can’t read or do even the simplest math problems.
Americans have to recognize that these unions don’t care about Americans; they don’t even care about public employees.
Last month, Jashanpreet Singh, a non-domiciled CDL holder and illegal immigrant, drove his truck (while high on drugs) into the back of a line of stopped cars, killing three people — among them long-time high school basketball coach Clarence Nelson and his wife.
Why aren’t the AFT and the AFSCME fighting to protect teachers, students, public employees, and parents from people like Singh?
Why aren’t they fighting for American workers to get jobs driving trucks and school buses at a fair wage rather than supporting the influx of unqualified immigrant drivers — an influx that not only lessens the number of job openings available for Americans but drives down their wages?
At some point, Americans must admit what the unions will never confess. They are not defending the people they claim to represent. They are defending their politics and their power. And until the public stops giving them the benefit of the doubt, these unions will keep sacrificing American workers, families, and entire communities on the altar of their ideology.
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