Canadian Carrier with US Driver

lowmiler88

lowmiler88

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Feb 22, 2008
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Ok so need to settle this once and for all, being a Canadian Carrier and we have a US Driver can we Interstate him? It has been an ongoing battle in our office so I thought I would throw it out here. Thanks in advance.
 
It is my understanding that you will be able to as long as driver can prove U.S citizenship. This is an immigration issue more than a DOT issue. U.S immigration should not care who the driver is employed by.
 
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The truck is fully authorized to work in the US. The driver MUST be a US citizen in order for him/her to deliver in the US from a US city. Canadian citizens with a green card can also do interstates. Canadian drivers may do drops in the US if the final destination is Canada and the deliveries should not be more than 5 miles from the interstate
 
@lowmiler88 ... you bet your sweet a$$ you can :) How did you score a deal like that ???
The only thing you have to worry about operationally is that the truck is IRP plated, which I'm sure it is. How you deal with things like payroll and taxes is a whole other kettle of fish, but it gets really simple if the driver is a subcontractor as opposed to an employee.

@martinetav ... "Canadian drivers may do drops in the US if the final destination is Canada..." ... are you sure about that?
 
Yup, as long as the final destination is Canada and the drops in the US do not deviate the route for more that 5 miles (for each drop) off the route that would be taken for a direct delivery to Canada. They consider that seeing that the load comes to Canada, they might not be able to get a US driver to do it so it doesn't 'steal' any work from them. We were sold a load once, by a US company and this regulation was explained to us. Someone even notified American immigration. They were waiting for us at one of the stops. After verification, it was determined that we were legal.
 
Hold on to that driver!
If we (carriers) all had US drivers our lives would be soooooo much easier. Dare to dream! :)
 
I call fos on all of this , under no circumstance may a Canadian Driver pickup and deliver within the USA - ever !
 
That, my burro'd friend, is completely false. If a Canadian carrier made a pick up in the United States of Canadian product that has NOT been enhanced in value, the Canadian carrier can transport it to another destination in the United States of America.
I go to Brantford and pick up a load of packaged widgets and deliver them to a warehouse in Jacksonville, Florida. A month later the Brantford customer sells those widgets that are in the warehouse in Jacksonville to a buyer in San Diego, I, or any Canadian carrier with a Canadian driver, can pick those widgets up and deliver them to San Diego legally.
I do a number of loads like this every year (although the names have been changed to protect the innocent ... LOL)
 
Jackhole,

I may still have the letter from Fema not sure. Back a few years ago I had a guy in the Peg when a broker called and asked me to load in northern MN to go to Florida. I went through the interstating blah blah , said broker cut me off and asked for an email address. He sent me an letter from Fema stating we where good to go on the load as it was a matter of national importance or something along that line and we had no HOS rules to abide buy etc It was to be load n go get it there asap.

I printed the letter and told the driver to stop at the scale in ND on his way to go load and show it to them. The scale man said we where go to and carry on as it was official document that had been verified by email to all the states and government agencies.

I know I was not the only truck from Canada either as some of the big Western carriers where loading and delivering. They sent over 500 loads in a 3 day period to all over the south.

Funny part the storm fizzled out but they where scared of another Katerina.
 
I think the problem is not with US DOT. It is the Dept of Immigration that can cause you grief over the fact that you are taking work away from American drivers.
 
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bull958 said:
I think the problem is not with US DOT. It is the Dept of Immigration that can cause you grief over the fact that you are taking work away from American drivers.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
The US DOT and Dept of Immigration have conflicting laws. DOT says Canadian drivers can interstate as long as the domestic load is "on the way" to picking up the load that is destined for Canada.
For example, deliver a load in Memphis, take another load from Memphis to Indy. Then, pick up your load from Indy to Toronto.
Immigration, however, says a Canadian driver cannot interstate, under any circumstance. A Canadian driver cannot even re-locate an empty trailer from one state to another. As can be seen by the replies so far, there are a lot of "exceptions" and grey areas to both laws.
As far as I know, an American driver should not have any difficulties.
 
It is a gery area interstating, but I did hear something that sounded a bit like:

If the load does not originate from the USA, Canadian and Mexican driver can do load within the US (i.e deliver)

Such as if a Canadian driver picks up a loaded trailer in Laredo, TX with an origin from MX (trailer still sealed) he can deliver the load in let's say Nashville, TN. This would not still be considered interstate. The same goes that if the same driver picks up a load in Memphis, TN and drops a the trailer in a transit yard in Laredo, TX (no delivery to a transit warehouse autorised, trailer must stay sealed when he is attached to that trailer)

From my understanding. (I hope I understood correctly)

But as far as an American driver driving a Canadian truck, I doubt that would be considered an Interstae, he may get stopped and verified while on route, but that would be all.
 
I'm trying to get an appointment with a transportation lawyer to get the exact definition and once I do I will let the rest of you know.
 
As pointed out to me on one occasion by a U.S. Customs officer at Port Huron, Mi. no Canadian driver under any circumstances is allowed to pick-up any freight and deliver it in the U.S. not even a 10 lb box. Whether in direct route or not. He further stated that as a Canadian I wasn't allowed to pick-up freight in places of port ( Laredo, Baltimore, Miami, etc ) and deliver it in the U.S. even tho it's from a foreign country the port is on U.S. soil. I brought up the point of these places being Free Trade Zones. Again he stressed what part of U.S. soil did I not understand. As for the U.S. driver interstating in a Canadian plated truck it's a very grey area. He personally is OK, BUT, they can impound the truck and freight because the truck has to be U.S. plated. This is my understanding as explained to me, but the larger carriers probably get away with all the above. It will be the driver that gets black-balled and banned from the States.
 
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