Sekulow

Will Haines: Today on Sekulow, we have breaking news as the Secretary of Transportation announces a massive crackdown on fraud. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Happy Monday to all of you. Will Haines here, joined by Jordan Sekulow in studio. We've got some breaking news this morning from the Secretary of Transportation as well as the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Markwayne Mullin, announcing a crackdown on fraudulent CDLs, commercial driver's licenses. They are using executive action today to shut down 270 driving schools for commercial driver's licenses. 110 of these driving schools they called the greatest offenders at granting CDLs to illegal immigrants. The other 160 they're shutting down didn't have the proper space or instructors to be issuing licenses. You're seeing this all at a time where they say that tens of thousands of illegal commercial driver's licenses were issued under former President Joe Biden's administration. Jordan, this comes at a time where you've seen an uptick in accidents on the interstate system involving illegal aliens that have commercial driver's licenses. It's a safety and security risk in the homeland, and the administration is addressing it today.
Jordan Sekulow: Yes, they're addressing not only the problem with the places that are known amongst these communities to say, "Hey, you might not have your right citizenship work, but we can get you a commercial driver's license so we can get you a pretty good paying job here as a truck driver." By the way, a lot of these facilities, it's not going to be too hard to get the license because they don't even have the right people to do the testing. They don't have the right space to do the testing either. So they didn't meet their standards even if you were a legal American citizen who wanted to get your CDL. If you went there and got your license, that license would not have been a place that should have been handing them out at all. Then you tie it to how many people, 95 in just the Yuma sector of Arizona, 95 illegal immigrants with legal CDLs. Now, I say legal CDLs because if they were pulled over and they handed that license over, that was a good CDL license. It may have been... now, where it becomes illegal is it was fraudulently obtained multiple ways. One, they are illegally here in the United States, so they've committed that crime. And you then look back and say what facilities they were receiving these in. Of course, some of the worst, the big numbers: 76 out of California, six from New York, and then the remainder were just kind of a smattering of states. That could have been a few people that got through with phony paperwork. We know that that happens. But when you talk about mass scale, when you talk about shutting down 270 driving schools, that's not, "Hey, we just didn't look at that paper close enough, and that green card close enough, to see it was phony or run it through the right system." Some of those are going to get through. But you're not going to have it on a mass scale like this unless you think no one cares and no one's going to get caught. But here's what really happens. It's not the deliveries that are safe, which who knows how they are because these guys aren't getting the right training in most of the places. It's how many Americans have been killed. How many Americans have been paralyzed or put on life support or severely injured with life-threatening injuries because of these schools that had no business giving out the license to anyone, and illegal immigrants who may not have even been able to speak the language they were being trained and tested in who could then receive these licenses as well.
Will Haines: Folks, we're going to talk about this and a lot more of the work of the ACLJ this hour. Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110, to talk to us on air. We are blessed as a broadcast to have a lot of America's backbone, the truck drivers that listen. Go ahead and give us a call too. What are your thoughts on this? What do you see while you're out there driving? We know a lot of you have been pointing to this, even calling into this program pointing to this for a long time. Are you glad to see the administration do something? We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Do you even realize the impact you make? Choosing freedom or oppression, justice or corruption, faith or godlessness, life or death? One factor can make the difference, and what is it? You. As an ACLJ supporter, you have great power. You make a tremendous impact. And this month, you can double that impact. Right now, your most sacred rights as an American, your freedom of speech, your freedom to pray and worship, even our free and fair election process are being threatened. Right now, as part of our ACLJ Impact Match, you can double your support. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your gift doubled today. We've witnessed monumental legal victories from defending the 14th Amendment and protecting our sacred American right to vote, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and standing up for the religious liberty of our kids and seniors. But even with the many historic wins we've achieved, the battle is far from over. The attacks on our constitutionally protected rights persist. Countless unborn babies remain in jeopardy, and across the globe, innocent Christians are being targeted and killed across this country and around the world. This fight isn't just the ACLJ's; it's all of ours. It belongs to every American who wants to preserve the values and beliefs on which this nation was founded. None of the victories we've won would have been possible without the unwavering support of ACLJ members and ACLJ champions. It's been an honor to fight for you all these years. Join us in fighting for freedom. Have your donation doubled at ACLJ.org/freedom. Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haines here, joined in studio by Jordan Sekulow. We're seeing a lot of people call in, but if you want to talk about this topic, 1-800-684-3110. Before we get to that, Jordan, I do want to make a pitch right up front here because it is our last day. It's August 31st of our impact match, and it is an important day, as important as ever to support the work of the ACLJ.
Jordan Sekulow: That's right. We're up against a midnight deadline tonight, and if you've been thinking about supporting the work of the ACLJ, this is the time to do it while you can. You can make twice the impact right now. An ACLJ champion is ready to match your gift dollar-for-dollar. You go to ACLJ.org/impact. Final day to do it. It's the final day of the month. The next few hours determine if we have the resources for the fights ahead. What are those fights like? We're filing in just a few days at the US Supreme Court to defend former Trump attorney John Eastman from disbarment by the political left. So still fighting those cases on election integrity. About to file at the Supreme Court to defend more election integrity, voter ID laws, and election integrity there. We're taking Gavin Newsom to the Supreme Court over his attacks on the churches there. Remember those multi-million dollar fines? We're defending pastors in multiple courts after they were arrested for sharing the Gospel. Yes, you heard that right, arrested for sharing the Gospel. All of this again, and we take on new cases as you know if you listen to this broadcast regularly, if you're a donor. We're taking on new cases every single day. These are massive fights. They're happening right now. There's all the back-to-school issues as well. For me as parents, we know this is when it all kicks into gear. It's the last chance to have your gift doubled is today, so you go to ACLJ.org/impact and you make that donation today. Your donation will be doubled.
Will Haines: So we're going to get back to this topic that we started off with. The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, today held a press conference. He was joined by Markwayne Mullin, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to go over this crackdown on fraud in the CDL industry. Let's go ahead and play bite one for folks. This is the Secretary of Transportation outlining what they are doing today and why it matters.
Sean Duffy: What we are announcing is an emergency executive shutdown of 110 driving schools. So these are driving schools that account for 5,000 of the violations for English proficiency. What I mean by that is you have to speak English to operate a commercial motor vehicle. I didn't create that rule. President Trump didn't create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades. And we have schools that know the rule and still pass people through their school who can't speak the language. And so there's 110 of them through our data analysis that are the greatest offenders. As of today, those schools are shut down.
Will Haines: Right there, he's talking about the 110 that are the greatest offenders at giving illegal immigrants CDLs, passing them through their school. We've seen the tragedies that have happened on the American interstate systems where commercial drivers have ended up hitting passenger vehicles and killing families. Many times these individuals, as you mentioned, there's the proficiency issue. Some of them did not speak English and had failed over 10 times the different testing that they are required, and yet still somehow ended up with a CDL. Then what did they do? They tragically took the lives of American citizens. They also announced a multi-agency operation in Arizona's Yuma sector where they arrested 95 illegal alien truck drivers earlier this month. All 95 drivers had acquired state-issued CDLs, 76 from California, six from New York, and the rest from a handful of other states, according to CBP. Jordan, this is not just a national security issue where Americans are dying, but it's also an economic security issue when jobs are being taken from Americans. Truck driving jobs are very difficult jobs. We know that they are the backbone of the infrastructure and the economy in the United States, but they also are compensated for the grueling hours they put in.
Jordan Sekulow: Right. I mean, if you're someone who is able to take on those kind of hours and you've got the body and the mind to do that, it can be a great profession. But if again, you're not being trained properly, or you're not able to speak the language, and or you fail multiple times and finally they just pass you through, this is how we get to these numbers. And this is not again an attack on the trucking industry. I think what we're starting to see is why do we see such huge numbers? I think it's because we're just tipping the iceberg of people who have CDLs, these commercial licenses to drive 18-wheelers, who have no business having them. And so 2024, they haven't even been able to calculate all of the deaths that happened in 2024 from 18-wheeler accidents, but let's go back to 2024: 5,300 people died. 82 percent of those were people outside of the truck. So they were in a vehicle that was hit, or they were on the side of the road, they were a motorcycle, pedestrian. So you've got a very small percent of the actual truck drivers in reality when you're looking at the 100 percent number who actually end up getting killed, but 82 percent of the regular drivers on the highway and those who were maybe in a motorcycle, maybe in a bike, even in pedestrian locations, they make up 82 percent of the fatalities. And that's back in 2024. The numbers in 2025 that are coming together are already at over 4,000 and those are still being put together. So again, this is something that not only affects business, affects our national security because who's got these licenses, and of course trafficking that comes in through this as well. You get a CDL license, it makes it a lot easier to start trafficking in humans, trafficking in drugs, weapons. I mean the list goes on and on. You can get involved with some pretty bad actors. But it also means that people are getting killed who shouldn't be by people who are not trained to drive these vehicles. There's a reason why there's a course to drive, to get a CDL license. And this, I feel like, wasn't that kind of a number, but you realize why the Morgan & Morgans of the world can exist and be these giant multi-million dollar law firms because thousands of people are getting killed by in these incidents a year. If we can start breaking down how many of them are people who didn't get the right training or got pushed through these horrendous schools, or had no business getting the license in the first place because they weren't proficient in the English language or have a green card or be a US... they were illegal actually illegal immigrants. So they were someone who should not even be in the United States working in any way. They shouldn't even be here.
Will Haines: Let's go ahead and take a phone call on this. Once again, the Secretary of the Treasury also put on X, this is just the beginning. So we can assume that this is the beginning of the crackdown and that more will happen. I think a lot of people are wanting that. Let's go ahead and take Jay calling on line one from Kentucky. Jay, you're on Sekulow.
Jay: Hey, how you doing? There was a common denominator here. I'm wondering when is Duffy going to go after the people issuing these licenses? These are... I would guarantee, because I know from living in my state, these offices are populated by Democrats. And in this state, they were selling driver's licenses to people who didn't have to pass the test, couldn't speak English, couldn't write English, for $200 a piece.
Will Haines: Jay, I know exactly the frustration there in Kentucky. You have a mixed state in as long... it's a very red state when it comes to national politics, but currently there's a Democrat governor. But you also look at some of the other Rust Belt states. I know Pennsylvania has had a big issue with these CDL issuances. We've heard from drivers that have called in. Of course you've got California leading it, the biggest blue state in the country. And I think that's one of the things that comes out of this discussion is the states that want more centralized government, more government control, more bureaucracy, more money from the government flowing down. That's where you always see the loopholes that get people into situations like this. It's not surprising that California has the highest issuance rate, it has the most high population. But what is surprising is they're the ones that want all the government control in Sacramento. They're the ones that want all of this. But instead of doing the actual things of government, of making sure that only the right people that should be licensed get licensed, you're seeing that that has the biggest amount of loopholes for people to get licensed. I also think these schools are the first step, and as he says, there's more to come. I do think that they are going to start cracking down on offices within states that once that individual has the paperwork that they passed the test from a private school that goes on to the government and gets issued the license, where are the checks and balances there that didn't catch how much fraud is going forward? That is also a big question that hopefully we'll find out here soon.
Jordan Sekulow: Yeah, I mean, I think one of those things you have to look at is why on earth is it this widespread? Why did 110 of these companies feel like they could get away with this? I mean, 110 and then another that were just giving out driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. And then another 160 who were running schools that wouldn't meet the safety standards of any kind of check, safety check. So who were they paying off? Because you would imagine these schools have to get re-certified by the state or even by a federal agency, maybe NTSB. And so you have to look at that too at the local level of the federal government, is what was going on where these schools were getting checkmarks to continue to give out the training for these people to give out the CDLs? And is that why we have such a high rate of fatality in the United States on our roads when it comes to 18-wheelers because it's both happening at the drivers that shouldn't have the licenses and the places that shouldn't be giving the licenses out?
Will Haines: Folks, when we come back, we have an update on our fight to free Pastor Cao from China. We'll be right back. We've witnessed monumental legal victories from defending the 14th Amendment and protecting our sacred American right to vote, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and standing up for the religious liberty of our kids and seniors. But even with the many historic wins we've achieved, the battle is far from over. The attacks on our constitutionally protected rights persist. Countless unborn babies remain in jeopardy, and across the globe, innocent Christians are being targeted and killed across this country and around the world. This fight isn't just the ACLJ's; it's all of ours. It belongs to every American who wants to preserve the values and beliefs on which this nation was founded. None of the victories we've won would have been possible without the unwavering support of ACLJ members and ACLJ champions. It's been an honor to fight for you all these years. Join us in fighting for freedom. Have your donation doubled at ACLJ.org/freedom. Do you even realize the impact you make? Choosing freedom or oppression, justice or corruption, faith or godlessness, life or death? One factor can make the difference, and what is it? You. As an ACLJ supporter, you have great power. You make a tremendous impact. And this month, you can double that impact. Right now, your most sacred rights as an American, your freedom of speech, your freedom to pray and worship, even our free and fair election process are being threatened. Right now, as part of our ACLJ Impact Match, you can double your support. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your gift doubled today. Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haines in studio, joined by Jordan Sekulow as well as C.C. Heil, Senior Counsel here at the ACLJ. We've been talking about our fight to get Pastor Cao freed from China, brought back home to the United States as he battles terminal cancer. We asked a lot of you to sign our petition with the letter going to President Trump, to the Secretary of State's office, as well as going to officials from China hoping to raise this as an issue before Xi Jinping comes to the United States. We are happy to report that the State Department as well as the White House have received it, and we're going to talk to C.C. about this. But this is what your signatures look like. Now, C.C. is more eco-friendly than some of us because it is front and back for all the signatures of the names. I would have made it twice as big, but she saved on shipping costs as well as paper, so we can thank her for that. But this is impressive. This is going to the White House, this is going to the State Department, and we're attempting to get it to Chinese officials as well to hopefully get Pastor Cao home.
C.C. Heil: Yeah, and this goes to show again, we have so many people that say all the time, "I sign that petition, what does it do?" And you can see it right there. We actually not only are we able to say on behalf of almost 340,000 individuals that want Pastor Cao to come home, we can actually show those. And I think that's impressive because a lot of times you can just read a number and gloss over it. But we wanted to print those out, every single name, almost 340,000 of you signed this petition and your names went to President Trump and to Secretary Rubio so that they don't just pass it, they are like, "Wow, there are 340,000 people that care about Pastor Cao coming home." And that is impressive. And that makes them pause, so it's not just the ACLJ that's asking. It's again on behalf of 340,000 of you that signed this petition. So I want to thank you all for doing that. And we're very happy to say that the White House and the State Department received our letters, and then we've also bolstered that with people within the State Department and the administration making sure that those letters are seen. Now, like you said with the President Xi letter, that was rejected, but we also have other avenues to get it to him as well. So we're very hopeful. We're very hopeful because like we've said over and over and over, this is an easy win for the administration. It's another victory for President Trump to have in his long list of victories of getting Americans back home. And also, it's a win for President Xi because once again it'll show, just like his release of Pastor John, that he cares, he's compassionate, he cares about human rights, and he cares about the rule of law. And under China's own law, our client Pastor Cao, who is a lawful permanent resident of the United States for almost 40 years, he is able under their own law to come back. And now that he has been diagnosed with stage four cancer, he needs to get back home immediately, immediately. Before President Xi comes here on September 24th and meets with President Trump, we have asked, just make this right, let him come home, let him see his family, let him meet his new grandson that he's never met, let him get the treatment, the cancer treatment that he needs.
Will Haines: And Jordan, this obviously we've been mentioning is the final day of our impact match. This is an impact. Those of you that support the work of the ACLJ, whether it be through your financial support, whether it be through supporting us by signing petitions, standing alongside of those that we are fighting for, this is an impact. This what it means when you support the work of the ACLJ. This fight isn't over. We can also amend this. We can add to this. You can still go and sign this petition and hopefully we won't need to use your extra names, but we may have to. And I think when you make the impact today, it's an important thing.
Jordan Sekulow: Yes, I say why you go to ACLJ.org/impact and make that donation if you can, because it's doubled today and this is the final day of that. You'll see stories all the time, "Oh, there was a petition of 20,000 people in DC," and like that was a lot. This is over almost 340,000 names in this packet. This is what the ACLJ and all of us can do when we unite. Now we need our donors to be able to get the work together, to be able to get it out to you so you can sign those petitions. So we need all of you to go to ACLJ.org/impact and make that donation. But it doesn't cost you a donation to sign a petition, and we always make that clear. So if you're in a financial situation where a donation is not something that you can do, you can still make a huge impact. Because again, you'll see in local newspapers 5,000 people signed on to do this. This is almost 340,000 Americans who have signed on to do it, and they're all again ACLJ supporters who are saying bring this persecuted Christian home to their family. And they're doing it when they know it's tough, a tough ask to the Chinese government. And yet they signed on. And that is just again an example of just one of our petitions. But it shows you the size, it shows you the scope, and it shows you what you can do when we come together and unite around a common cause. So we talk about impact a lot this last month. This is impact, donations are impact and that's why you can double your donation this month. It's a huge impact, but so are putting your name onto paper.
Will Haines: Well, and I think it also shows that at the ACLJ, we not only fight for the First Amendment right of all of the clients and all of Americans, whether it be your freedom of speech, your freedom of religion, but we also practice our First Amendment rights. This is petitioning the government for redress of grievances. This is sending a petition. So when you sign on, you can actively use your First Amendment rights through the work of the ACLJ. Also, donating to the ACLJ, that is using your First Amendment rights. It's putting it to practice. It's not just wanting to make sure that everyone's right is protected. It's also exercising that right so that it doesn't get taken away.
C.C. Heil: Yeah, that's right. And again, this is Pastor Cao. If you don't know this story, he is a lawful permanent resident of the United States. And he was just living out his faith in China and doing some humanitarian work along the Chinese-Burma border when he was targeted and arrested. And he served a full seven-year sentence, complete full seven-year sentence. And then once he was released, instead of being allowed to come home to the United States to his family, they then start enforcing an administrative law that is keeping him there. And they can keep him there without a passport is basically how they're doing it. They're not issuing him a passport. They can do that for six months to three years after he was released. So actually, September of 2024, he was eligible under their own law for a passport. All we're asking is just enforce your law, you can issue him a passport, let him come home.
Will Haines: Folks, once again, we're talking about impact. This is the end of our impact match, but it's not the end of your ability to support the work of the ACLJ. This is the final day, though. We have a midnight deadline tonight. So if you've been thinking about supporting the ACLJ and whether it be this story of wanting to bring Pastor Cao home and seeing the wonderful impact so many other ACLJ members have already made through signing that petition, now's the time. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your donation doubled. Dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your gift doubled today. As an ACLJ supporter, you have great power. You make a tremendous impact. And this month, you can double that impact. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/impact and have your gift doubled today.