Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier praised the Trump administration to Newsmax on Wednesday for taking swift action to deal with the problem of blue states issuing truck licenses to illegal aliens, even those who can't understand English enough to read road signs.
Uthmeier, a Republican, was commenting on "Wake Up America" concerning the federal Department of Transportation threatening to freeze federal funding for states that don't require truck drivers to speak and understand English after an illegal alien truck driver who received his license in California made an illegal U-turn that killed three people in Florida.
"I applaud President Trump and his administration for taking swift action, as they always do," Uthmeier said. "You have this tragic accident at the hands of an illegal alien who should not have ever had this trucker's license to begin with. You've got blue states that apparently are engaging in systematic abuse of the program, not only allowing illegal aliens to get these permits but enabling them to do so when they do not even speak English" or understand road signs.
He emphasized that "this is terribly dangerous for American families out there and if the federal government sees the systematic abuse … then they can and should pull these programs and pull the funding."
When asked about Florida's new program where truck weigh stations are used as immigration checkpoints, Uthmeier said that "our agriculture commissioner is doing a great job of surging resources and law enforcement to these inspection points."
He stressed that "there will be a check to make sure that they A., speak English, B., that they are competent enough to be driving these trucks in the first place... If they got licenses from sanctuary states, that is not valid here … so we will be detaining illegal aliens that are interdicted at these sites."
Uthmeier insisted that "we are going to keep protecting our citizens, we are going to be looking for legal remedies against sanctuary states like California.
When asked about Article Four of the Constitution requiring states to accept the licenses of other states, Uthmeier made it clear that "when another state is violating the law by issuing those driver's licenses to begin with, we certainly stand on solid ground here in Florida to not accept those licenses. Those are not lawfully valid to begin with."
He reiterated that "we are going to keep fighting for what is right and just and we won't stop at anything to push back against other states and take these arguments to court as necessary."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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