Ukrainian truck drivers who fled Russia's war are being detained at weigh stations and in routine traffic stops across the United States, as the Trump administration expands immigration enforcement against noncitizens who hold commercial driver's licences, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. Traffic stops and routine inspections in states including Oklahoma, Indiana and Texas have resulted in the detention of hundreds of immigrant drivers, and Ukrainians who arrived under wartime humanitarian programmes are among those being swept up — in some cases, according to the reporting, despite holding work authorisation and having no criminal record.

Source: The New York Times, via AILA Daily Immigration News Clips, Nov. 3, 2026

One of those detained was Mykhailo Shekhtman, a 55-year-old Ukrainian driver who had settled in Georgia through a Biden-era humanitarian programme. According to a Homeland Security arrest report cited by the Times, Oklahoma state troopers took him into custody during a routine inspection at a weigh station in February, while he was transporting cars to Oklahoma. The arrest report indicated that Shekhtman had no criminal record; authorities suspected he was unlawfully present in the United States. Speaking in an October interview from a detention facility outside Oklahoma City, Shekhtman described his confusion at the arrest: "I asked, 'Why are you arresting me? On what grounds are you arresting me?'"

Source: The New York Times (full text as republished)

According to a representative for Ukraine cited by the Times, at least a dozen Ukrainian truck drivers were detained in Oklahoma and Indiana during the summer alone. The Oklahoman, which has been reporting on the Oklahoma arrests since September, found dozens of Ukrainian drivers arrested while working and travelling through that one state, most of them remaining in custody at Oklahoma facilities. One driver it interviewed, identified only as Ali, 26, was hauling freight along Interstate 40 from North Carolina toward California when he was pulled into an Oklahoma weigh station. A trooper tested his English proficiency — Ali passed, missing only one question — and he produced his passport, his employment authorisation document and Border Patrol records. He was arrested anyway for an immigration violation, handcuffed and driven to a jail in Tulsa.

Source: The Oklahoman, Sept. 13, 2026

Ali had applied to renew his humanitarian parole before it expired, The Oklahoman reported, and he was freed within a day after Karl Ahlgren, Ukraine's honorary consul for Oklahoma, intervened. Ahlgren told the paper that at least two dozen Ukrainians have been processed into ICE custody at the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, Oklahoma, and said drivers are often given misleading information to persuade them to stay at weigh stations until ICE agents arrive — an allegation by the consul, not a finding by any court. Other drivers, he said, have remained in detention for months.

The rule change underneath the arrests

A large part of the trap, legal advocates say, is a change in the licensing rules themselves. The Ukraine Immigration Task Force, a legal-aid coalition, explains that a federal final rule that took effect on March 16, 2026 severely restricts which noncitizens may hold a commercial driver's licence: states may now issue or renew non-domiciled CDLs only to drivers holding an H-2A, H-2B or E-2 visa, and simply holding an Employment Authorization Document is no longer sufficient. That means people paroled under Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) and people granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) are no longer eligible to apply for or renew a CDL, even if they previously held a valid one — and Ukrainians who keep driving commercially without one of the three named visas face a greater risk of being stopped, inspected or detained by police and state transport authorities.

Source: Ukraine Immigration Task Force — legal guidance

Context: the Operation Guardian sweep announced on Monday

The Ukrainian cases are surfacing alongside the wider crackdown this site reported on Monday, when Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton announced the results of Operation Guardian in Tulsa: a three-day, 15-state operation (October 26-28) in which officers inspected 1,005 commercial vehicles and arrested more than 230 people, including more than 40 CDL holders. Ukraine was on the list of more than 19 countries of origin of those arrested — and so was India. Tipton said Oklahoma alone has removed 710 CDL holders from its roads over the past year, and both officials said the sweeps will continue. "When it comes to somebody driving an 80,000-pound truck who has not been trained properly, can't read and speak English, we've seen the devastating effects of this around the country," Tipton said. Mullin criticised New York and California for issuing credentials without adequate verification, while emphasising that legal permanent residents and work-visa holders remain fully eligible for CDLs if they meet all testing standards.

Source: News9, Tulsa — Operation Guardian announcement, Nov. 2, 2026

Why this matters to Punjabi truckers

Long-haul trucking is one of the largest employers of Punjabi immigrants in North America, and the corridors named in this reporting — Interstate 40 and Interstate 35 through Oklahoma, the weigh stations of Indiana and Texas — are the same corridors Punjabi drivers run every week between California, the Midwest and the East Coast. The enforcement described here does not begin with a crash or a traffic offence: it begins at the weigh station and the routine inspection, with an English-proficiency check and a status check. The lesson in the verified reporting is about paperwork categories, not about driving: since March 16, 2026, a work permit (EAD) on its own no longer qualifies a noncitizen for a non-domiciled CDL under the federal rule, whatever state issued the licence earlier. Drivers from India were among those arrested in Operation Guardian, according to the DHS country list reported from Tulsa. This story reports the rules and the arrests as officials and advocates have stated them; it is information, not legal advice for any individual driver.

The TPS clock hanging over 330,000 people

Shekhtman's case also sits inside a much larger uncertainty. More than 330,000 Ukrainians live in the United States under Uniting for Ukraine and Temporary Protected Status, programmes that let people fleeing the war live and work legally on a temporary basis; the Task Force puts the U4U parolee population alone at about 240,000, plus more than 30,000 Ukrainians paroled at the border. The Trump administration, which regards the entry of many Biden-era migrants as unlawful, has suspended the Uniting for Ukraine programme and is considering whether to allow TPS — one of the largest deportation-protection programmes — to expire. On October 19, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted that an announcement on Ukraine's TPS "will be made at the appropriate time" and that, until then, Ukrainians present under TPS retain their protection, including work authorisation.

Source: Ukraine Immigration Task Force — USCIS TPS alert summary

What happens next

Mullin and Tipton said on Monday that Operation Guardian's multi-state CDL sweeps will be repeated "throughout the country over and over again," so weigh-station enforcement of the new CDL categories is set to continue and expand beyond the first 15 states. For the Ukrainians already detained, cases move through immigration custody and removal proceedings individually; Shekhtman was still in detention when he spoke to the Times in October. The bigger decision — whether TPS for Ukraine is extended or allowed to lapse — remains with the administration, and USCIS's October alert is the last official word: protection continues until an announcement is made. FreightWaves, the trucking-industry outlet, noted in its own coverage of the Guardian announcement that DHS has not provided a state-by-state breakdown of the arrests or said how many of the detained CDL holders obtained their licences fraudulently — questions that will follow the operation as cases reach court.

Source: FreightWaves — Operation Guardian coverage