When the Department of Transportation's September 29, 2025 emergency rule exposed 200,000 fraudulently issued non-domiciled CDLs — many held by individuals with no legal work authorization — most of the trucking industry braced for a painful but necessary correction. The U.S. Postal Service did something far worse: it threw a tantrum and refused to comply.

USPS briefly tried following the law by barring these drivers from postal loads. The result? Instant paralysis. Routes were abandoned, trailers sat empty, and delays exploded nationwide. Why does the USPS have a disproportionate number of Non-Domicile CDLs?

While the broader trucking market absorbed the initial shock because these non-domiciled CDLs represent only a fraction of most capacity, USPS discovered — to its horror — that its own contractor network had become grotesquely dependent on these very drivers. In other words, the Postal Service had systematically replaced lawful American drivers with cheaper, unregulated labor holding these licenses, creating a house of cards that collapsed the moment federal rules were enforced.

Instead of accepting responsibility for building an illegal-labor-dependent system, USPS executives did the unthinkable. Senior Vice President Pete Routsolias went on an emergency call and admitted they "didn't understand the magnitude" of their own reliance — then ordered an immediate return to using the banned drivers. Translation: because USPS is one of the worst offenders in flooding its network with fraudulent CDLs, it believes it deserves special treatment that no one else gets.

That is outrageous. Being the most addicted to illegal labor does not grant special treatment under federal safety rules; it is an indictment of years of reckless outsourcing decisions and willful blindness that displaced American workers and compromised highway safety. We can expect to see this same type of outcry from a few more shippers who have engineered and profited by going all in on this capacity. The damage you have done to American Carriers and American Truck drivers does not get a FREE PASS.

America's chain of custody for our mail will not be held hostage by an agency that chose lawbreakers over lawful citizens. Fix the mess you made, USPS — now — not in two years.

Submitted by American Truckers United,