Chinese illegal immigrants are obtaining commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) and landing jobs in the U.S. trucking industry with support from a Chinese government-linked network, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.
The Chinese American Trucker Organization USA Inc. (CATOU) is a New York-based
nonprofit trade organization registered as a
501(c)6 that has
allegedly helped over 1,000 Chinese students obtain CDLs and has a 100% pass rate, according to its business filings, social media posts and website. Videos posted on social media by an individual who
crossed the U.S. southern border illegally shows they were able to rapidly
obtain California CDLs after
taking courses
taught by CATOU
instructors.
The public safety concern presented by truckers with unknown criminal backgrounds and driving records is compounded by CATOU’s board
chairwoman, Geng Hang, who has
held leadership
roles within organizations
operating as
arms of the Chinese government and a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
influence and
intelligence agency called the United Front Work Department (UFWD), according to DCNF translations of announcements from those entities.
“No way American citizens voted for the California gateway for illegal migrants to operate heavy vehicles throughout America. That of itself is a public safety and homeland security concern,” Steve Yates, senior research fellow for China and national security policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.
[clip]
‘Foreign Actors’
CATOU’s chairwoman, Geng, has served as an official in multiple organizations advancing Chinese influence and intelligence efforts in the U.S., including one entity that has held meetings in the New York office shared by CATOU and Red Apple Employment Agency, according to DCNF translations of Chinese media reports, social media posts, and the organizations’ announcements.
Among
other Chinese government-tied leadership positions, the website of a New York
nonprofit called the American Shaanxi General Chamber of Commerce (ASGCC)
identifies Geng as its deputy chairwoman, according to a DCNF translation. ASGCC
operates as a branch of the Shaanxi provincial Department of Commerce as well as a “
sister association” of a UFWD
arm called the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), according to DCNF translations of ASGCC and COFA announcements.
ASGCC has repeatedly met with Chinese government officials, including in June 2009, when the nonprofit
welcomed a delegation from the Shaanxi government and the
UFWD‘s Chinese People’s Association For Friendship With Foreign Countries to discuss U.S. investment in China, according to DCNF translations of ASGCC announcements. Geng presented the delegation’s head with flowers at the airport, and she and other ASGCC members later serenaded the officials with songs like “
Nanniwan,” which commemorates the CCP and Chinese military,
according to Chinese state media.
Photos accompanying a January 2015 social media post made by ASGCC’s chairman also
show ASGCC has held meetings within the shared New York office of CATOU and Red Apple Employment Agency.
“We are slowly giving over our entire trucking industry to foreign actors,” Gord Magill, a truck industry writer, told the DCNF.
“I think foreign actors are fully aware that America’s corporations engaging in wage arbitrage and wage suppression against their own people are presenting opportunities for them to extract and scrape value out of the U.S. and give them some kind of strategic advantage in knowing exactly how our transportation systems work, and they’re just leveraging it for their own ends at the cost of American jobs and American motorists’ safety,” Magill said.