More than 230 illegal aliens, including more than 40 holders of commercial driver’s licenses, were arrested during a three-day immigration operation focused on the trucking industry across 15 states, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the results of the effort, called Operation Guardian, at a press conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Monday, the department said in a news release. According to DHS, the operation was carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and state and local partners from October 26 to October 28, and it targeted illegal aliens with unauthorized CDLs and other public safety threats in the trucking industry.
OPERATION GUARDIAN
In a 72-hour, 15-state operation targeting illegal aliens with unauthorized CDLs and other public safety threats in the trucking industry, we arrested over 230 illegal aliens—including over 40 CDL holders who have been removed from our roads.
Too many… pic.twitter.com/yAfHQcOZzN
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) November 2, 2026
“In just three days, we arrested more than 230 illegal aliens, including over 40 illegal aliens with commercial driver’s licenses, across 15 states,” Mullin said in the DHS release. “Our roads are safer with these illegal aliens no longer behind the wheels of semi-trucks.”
Oklahoma at the center
Oklahoma served as the hub of the sweep. Oklahoma Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton said at the press conference that analysts kept seeing social media posts telling drivers to route around Oklahoma when the state ran its own enforcement, according to CDLWire. “So our goal was to really try to stop this diverting,” Tipton said, as quoted by CDLWire.
Tipton described the effort as a “first-of-its-kind, multi-state partnership that made it much harder for individuals to evade detection,” according to KGOU, Oklahoma’s NPR station. CDLWire reported that officials said more than 1,000 commercial vehicles were inspected during the operation.
DHS listed the participating states as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
A trooper’s broken arm
DHS highlighted one arrest from October 26, when, according to the department, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol stopped a vehicle on Interstate 35 after seeing the driver looking down at his phone. DHS said a check showed the vehicle had been reported stolen in Texas, and that the driver, whom the department identified as an illegal alien from Honduras, resisted arrest, broke the trooper’s arm and ran before officers caught him. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations office in Tulsa has filed charges against him for assaulting, resisting and impeding officers, according to DHS.
The next day, according to the department, troopers stopped a vehicle on Interstate 40 and found that all seven people inside were in the country illegally, including an unaccompanied child.
Part of a wider CDL crackdown
The operation is one piece of a broader push by the Trump administration against illegal aliens holding commercial licenses. According to DHS, ICE launched a separate nationwide effort, Operation Guardrail, on September 25 targeting commercial vehicles operating in violation of U.S. law, and had arrested 303 people through it as of October 29. DHS also said that from January 20, 2025, through October 28, 2026, ICE made 4,795 CDL-related arrests nationwide, including 1,233 arrests involving CDL holders.
Some details remain unclear. FreightWaves reported that DHS did not provide a state-by-state breakdown of the arrests or say which states issued the licenses held by those detained. The trade outlet also noted that the department did not say how many of the CDL holders had obtained their licenses fraudulently.
For families who share the interstates with semi-trucks every day, the administration’s message is that who holds a commercial license is a public safety question. Mullin framed it in the release as part of President Trump’s promise to “Make American Roads Safe Again.”
Sources
Sources cited
- https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/11/02/secretary-mullin-announces-results-operation-guardian-crackdown-illegal-aliens
- https://cdlwire.com/2026/11/02/operation-guardian-15-state-cdl-crackdown
- https://www.kgou.org/politics-and-government/2026-11-03/federal-oklahoma-law-enforcement-tout-recent-multi-state-immigration-sting
- https://www.freightwaves.com/news/230-plus-immigrants-arrested-in-crackdown-targeting-unauthorized-cdl-holders
Sources
- Original post: Homeland Security (@DHSgov) on X, Nov 2, 2026
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