Immigration agents arrest 87 with commercial driver's licenses in California

Rosalio Ahumada, The Sacramento Bee on Dec 19, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Border Patrol agents arrested 42 people with commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants, including 31 from California, who were taken into custody at immigration checkpoints and highways.

Another federal immigration operation targeting California trucking companies over two days last week led to the arrests of 45 more people with commercial licenses.

In total, 87 commercial drivers were arrested over the past few weeks in the two immigration enforcement operations focused on Southern California. The operations were conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

Border Patrol agents announced the arrests on Friday, a little more than a month after news outlets reported California would be revoking 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants after finding the licenses’ expiration dates extended beyond the drivers’ legal stay in the U.S.

Between Nov. 23 and Dec. 12, El Centro sector agents assigned to the Indio station arrested 42 commercial drivers operating semi-trucks on interstate highways or passing through immigration checkpoints on Highway 86 and Highway 111, according to a Border Patrol release.

Of the 42 arrested in the Indio area of Riverside County, 30 were from India, two from El Salvador, and the remainder from China, Eritrea, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Russia, Somalia, Turkey and Ukraine.

Border Patrol officials said 31 drivers held California-issued licenses. The rest were issued in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

“El Centro Sector personnel are stalwart defenders of our nation’s security, whether that occurs at the border or in the interior of the United States,” El Centro Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Joseph Remenar said in the news release. “Since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2026, El Centro Sector’s arrests of individuals in the interior have surpassed those at the border, directly illustrating what can be accomplished when a secure border is achieved.”

After news broke last month about California revoking 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said California and Gov. Gavin Newsom were “caught red-handed.” Duffy claimed the state had illegally issued the trucking licenses to “dangerous foreign drivers” and credited an ongoing audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration as reason for the state’s decision.

Newsom’s office rejected Duffy’s remarks in a statement that countered the transportation secretary’s assertions as “lies.” The Governor’s Office asserted that these drivers “are not ‘illegal immigrants’; all had legal presence and had been granted work authorization by the federal government as confirmed by the federal government,” and new federal requirements were not in effect at the time the licenses were issued.

“Once again, the Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his ‘dear leader,’” the statement read. “He did, however, finally acknowledge that federal government issued these drivers work permits.”

In addition, Border Patrol agents on Dec. 10 and 11 participated in “Operation Highway Sentinel,” which was a two-day enforcement operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Ontario and Fontana in San Bernardino County. The operation specifically targeted commercial trucking companies in California.

Border Patrol agents said 45 people with commercial driver’s licenses were arrested in the federal immigration operation in San Bernardino County.

(The Bee’s Darrell Smith contributed to this story.)