Mexican truck drivers study English to comply with new US language rules

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) -Mexican truck drivers in the border city of Ciudad Juarez have begun studying English in efforts to comply with an executive order by President Donald Trump requiring commercial drivers in the U.S. to meet English-proficiency standards.

Some 50 drivers who haul goods back and forth between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, just across the border in Texas, are attending four to eight hours of English classes a week organized by their employer, Fletes Sotelo, in order to meet the U.S. standards.

The company’s owner, Manuel Sotelo, said the classes started some six weeks ago, and that the goal is for all the company’s drivers to know basic English. Sotelo is also the president of the transport association of Ciudad Juarez.

Jose Murguia, one of the drivers, said he thought the classes were a great opportunity, especially given the recent executive order.

“It’s important to know the language, at least in the ways that are necessary for our work, which is to transport goods into El Paso,” he said.

While the English-proficiency standard for truckers was already longstanding U.S. law, Trump’s executive order in April reversed 2016 guidance that inspectors not place commercial drivers out of service if their only violation was lack of English.

The order came on the heels of Trump’s March executive order mandating English as the official language of the United States.

That executive order has been criticized as discriminatory since millions of Americans speak languages other than, or in addition to, English.

(Reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by William Mallard)