Not So Fast: The Harmful Impact of Mass Migration on American Trucking
July 10, 2025
Pawel Styrna
Senior Researcher
Trucking is often rightfully described as the lifeblood of America’s economy. Approximately two-thirds of the freight by weight in the U.S. is transported by trucks, generating almost a trillion dollars in gross freight revenue. The sector also employs about 8.5 million people in trucking or trucking-related jobs, in addition to millions of self-employed truck drivers. However, this critical contributor to America’s economy is also being harmed (just like American citizens) by the impacts of mass immigration.
Harm is exactly what happened on June 28 on highway I-20 just to the east of Dallas. Twenty-seven-year-old Cuban national Alexis Osmani Gonzalez-Companioni fell asleep at the wheel of the 18-wheeler he was driving. As a result, he struck a column of vehicles stopped on the highway due to a previous accident, killing three generations of one family and an unrelated person. The victims were 79-year-old Billy McKellar, 52-year-old Zabar McKellar, 45-year-old Krishaun McKellar and 16-year-old Kason McKellar. Twenty-year-old Evan McKellar survived, but had to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit. Gonzales-Companioni’s careless driving also killed another individual, 49-year-old Nicole Gregory driving a separate vehicle. Texas state delegate and investigative journalist Sarah Fields pointed out that the migrant trucker did not speak English. A communist youth leader in Cuba, he obtained Spanish citizenship and entered the U.S. in 2020 under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) and illegally overstayed.
Gonzalez-Companioni was not the only foreign trucker to cause great harm and kill Americans in recent years. In March, Eritrean national Solomun Weldekeal-Araya killed five people – including a child and an infant – and injured eleven others in the area of Austin, Texas. He was driving a large truck with an Amazon logo and struck multiple vehicles in a work zone. He spoke limited English but “mostly” his native Tigrinya and had a history of reckless speeding. His immigration status is unclear, although investigative journalist Sarah Fields claims on X that Araya is “an asylum seeker on a work visa who can barely speak English and works for a chain of suspicious LLCs that are currently under investigation by DOT Secretary Sean Duffy.”
https://www.fairus.org/blog/2025/07/10/harmful-impact-mass-migration-american-trucking
