The Dalilah Law could create a trucking rate super cycle

Craig Fuller, CEO at FreightWaves · Wednesday, February 25, 2026

The Dalilah Law, the Senate bill introduced by Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) following President Trump’s call during the State of the Union, would trigger a sharp, immediate contraction in trucking capacity if enacted, potentially igniting a trucking super cycle with overnight rate surges amid severely tight supply. Much higher trucking rates could become permanent, giving carriers the best operating conditions in decades.

By limiting commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and holders of only a narrow set of work visas (E-2 treaty investors, H-2A agricultural workers, H-2B non-agricultural workers), the legislation would force states to revoke thousands of existing CDLs held by undocumented individuals and many others with temporary or non-qualifying immigration status. It also mandates English-only knowledge and skills testing, plus a mandatory recertification process for current holders, all enforced by the threat of withheld federal highway funding for non-compliant states.

This is not another FMCSA regulation, guidance document, or agency interpretation that could be softened, delayed, or reversed by a future administration. If Congress passes the bill and the President signs it, the Dalilah Law becomes statutory federal law, effective immediately upon enactment. States would have no choice but to comply swiftly to protect their transportation funding, with only the bill’s built-in 180-day recertification window offering any transition period for existing drivers.

The capacity math is straightforward and severe. Foreign-born drivers currently comprise roughly 18–19% of the U.S. trucking workforce, around 630,000–720,000 out of approximately 3.5–3.8 million total drivers/CDL holders, per Bureau of Labor Statistics and industry reports. While not all would be directly affected (many hold citizenship or permanent residency), the bill’s strict eligibility criteria, excluding undocumented individuals, most temporary statuses, and imposing English-only mandates, align closely with scenarios analyzed in a detailed report prepared for J.B. Hunt by Noël Perry of Transport Futures.

That analysis estimates that full implementation of similar immigration enforcement policies, including English proficiency requirements, documentation checks, and restrictions on non-domiciled/temporary CDLs, could put over 600,000 drivers at risk, or about 16% of the active driver population (with a modeled figure of approximately 614,000 drivers disqualified under conservative assumptions from FMCSA data). The breakdown includes roughly 197,000 from English proficiency failures, 252,000 (net) from undocumented status/documentation issues, and 167,000 (net) from non-domiciled status revocations, plus overlaps and hiring restrictions.