Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin did not accept the usual press conference dodge about illegal truckers.
Standing with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in Detroit on Monday, he was asked, in effect, to treat a small percentage of wrecks as if that settled the argument.
Mullin refused.
“Every single illegal that maims or kills an individual is 100 percent preventable,” he said in a clip posted by DHS and amplified on his own account.
Every death at the hands of an illegal alien is 100% preventable.
If you are here illegally, we will come after you and we will IMMEDIATELY remove you from this country. https://t.co/7wE2bz6CZj
— Secretary Markwayne Mullin (@SecMullinDHS) August 31, 2026
“I’m trying to prevent every one of them,” he said. “Every death at the hands of an illegal is one too many.”
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The briefing announced an emergency shutdown of 110 driving schools and action against 160 more, plus a nationwide audit of third-party CDL testers, according to the full press event.
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Duffy pointed to cases such as Dalilah Coleman, a five-year-old left with a catastrophic brain injury after a crash involving a driver who should never have had a commercial license.
Officials said Operation Highway Shield has already pulled hundreds of dangerous truckers off the road.
A reporter still reached for the statistics. Foreign-born or illegal drivers, the implication went, are not most of the problem.
That is the move left-wing media makes on almost every immigration crime story.
No serious person claims illegal immigrants commit the majority of American homicides, wrecks, or assaults. Citizens are most of the population. The majority of crime will usually belong to people who belong here.
That observation is not a revelation. It is a strawman.
The real question is simpler: Should anyone die because a person with no right to be in the country was handed the keys to an 80,000-pound rig?
Mullin put it in family terms. Would the reporter accept a “1 percent” chance that his own daughter gets hit?
The Western Journal has already covered the human cost: an illegal trucker in a deadly eight-car crash, a driver whose sentence was cut under California law after killing three, and Florida’s fight with California’s licensing pipeline.
Texas told Gavin Newsom to take notes. Trump has talked about putting veterans in those seats.
None of that depends on illegal truckers being “most” drivers.
It depends on the fact that every one of those deaths was optional. The driver should not have been here. The license should not have been issued. The family should still be whole.
Mullin said if you are here illegally, the Department of Homeland Security will come after you and remove you.
That is not a talking point. It is the job description.
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