It’s time to demand real accountability for government officials who break the law by granting commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens who go on to kill and maim other drivers and passengers on the road.
Every day it seems, Americans experience — or hear about — another preventable tragedy.
Another father or mother has their child stolen from them.
Another victim dies an excruciating death or sustains lifelong injuries that forever hinder their ability to work or enjoy life.
And so many times that tragedy never would have happened if someone in government had done their job.
Of late, Americans are hearing about people being killed in horrific crashes by foreign truck drivers.
These drivers aren’t just running across the border and running into someone on the road. They’re driving big rig trucks, and authorities in sanctuary states are granting them the privilege to do so.
You heard right: Illegal aliens are being given Class A commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) — nearly all of them without the requisite training or background checks that Americans are mandated to satisfy. Many of these foreign drivers can’t even speak or read English.
States in Open Rebellion
This is not new. Thanks to open borders and sanctuary policies, progressive states have been defying federal interstate laws governing commercial driver requirements for years.
Under the new Trump administration, however, there has been an effort to crack down on illegal truck drivers.
In April, President Trump signed an executive order instructing U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to enforce English proficiency mandates for truck drivers. The order also tasked Duffy with reviewing the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, or licenses granted to foreign nationals who are not permanent residents. These allow foreign nationals with work visas to drive trucks, but the drivers are supposed to be in the United States legally.
Duffy followed that up in June by announcing an audit of state CDL processes. No one was surprised when that audit eventually determined that states were granting non-domiciled CDLs to ineligible drivers, including those who entered and remained in the country illegally or who could not proficiently speak and read English.
Unfortunately, Americans would learn of this reality before the findings of the DOT’s audit were released.
On August 12, a truck driver named Harjinder Singh abruptly made an illegal U-turn through an “Official Use Only” access point in St. Lucie County, Florida, killing three people when their vehicle collided at full speed into Singh’s trailer.
Singh should have never been on the road. He illegally immigrated to the United States from India in 2018, but the first Trump administration denied Singh a work authorization and put him on the path to expedited deportation. But when Singh claimed fear of returning to India, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released him on a $5,000 immigration bond with a future court date. In 2021, the Biden administration authorized Singh to work.
In July 2023 Washington State granted Singh a full CDL, despite the fact that he was not eligible, and in July 2024 California granted Singh a limited non-domiciled CDL.
Turns out he was a bad driver in almost every way imaginable — and no one in authority seemed to care. On July 3, 2025, Singh was stopped by police in New Mexico for speeding, and though the officers conducted a roadside inspection of his truck, they failed to give Singh an English proficiency test — as required by the DOT.
A few weeks later, Singh killed three people on a Florida highway.
Two days after the crash, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiated a compliance review with White Hawk Carriers, Inc., the trucking company that hired Singh. That included finally giving Singh an English proficiency test.
He failed — correctly answering only 2 of 12 questions and accurately identifying just 1 of 4 highway traffic signs.
A review also found that Singh had failed his CDL exam 10 times from March 10, 2023 to May 5 of that year. He also failed his air brakes exam twice.
Singh has since been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide.
Following the wreck, DOT finally released its findings of “systemic noncompliance” by several states. In response DOT issued an emergency rule strengthening requirements for states to verify a driver’s eligibility for a CDL and to pull CDLs from drivers who remain in the U.S. past their legal work authorization.
“What our team has discovered should disturb and anger every American,” Duffy said. “Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers — often times illegally. This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it.”
DOT issued warnings to California, Washington, and New Mexico regarding their noncompliance, threatening the loss of federal funding.
According to Duffy, all states but California agreed to comply with the rule.
On September 26, DOT sent a notice to California regarding its audit, which found that more than 25 percent of the state’s non-domiciled CDLs were improperly issued. The audit also found that many California non-domiciled CDLs were valid long after the driver’s lawful status in the U.S. had ended.
California still refused to comply, so on October 15, DOT notified the Golden State that it would withhold $40 million in federal funding. If the state doesn’t comply within 30 days, it could lose $160 million.
Illegal and Incompetent—A Deadly Mix
All that didn’t stop yet another preventable tragedy by an illegal truck driver.
This one is the direct result of California’s continued unwillingness to follow federal law and protect its own citizens.
On June 27, California issued Jashanpreet Singh, a 21-year-old illegal immigrant, a non-domiciled CDL. On October 15, the very day DOT announced that it would withhold funding from California, the state upgraded Singh’s CDL license, increasing his driving privileges.
Six days later, Singh, speeding and high on drugs, crashed into the back of a line of stopped cars on a California highway, killing three people and injuring four others. The dead included Clarence Nelson, a beloved local high school basketball coach, and his wife, Lisa. Police say that Singh never even touched his brakes.
Singh entered the U.S. illegally in 2022, and though caught by border patrol, he was released into the U.S. and has been in asylum proceedings ever since. The Biden administration soon thereafter granted him a work authorization.
The DOT blames Gavin Newsom for the tragedy, but the much-maligned California governor deflected that charge, saying that it’s the federal government’s fault for granting Singh a work authorization. California, he insists, was simply following the law.
However, California is not required to grant a driver a CDL just because the federal government grants work authorization, any more than it can automatically grant CDL licenses to Americans who apply to be truck drivers.
The reality is that California doesn’t care about federal law. It follows the law when it serves its purposes and ignores it when it doesn’t. As a sanctuary state, California routinely flouts federal immigration law by barring law enforcement from cooperating with ICE.
A Widespread Problem
Unfortunately, California is hardly alone in this. Way too many states have refused to honor federal law regarding CDLs, and the result is untold pain and suffering for innocent people throughout the country.
This unwillingness to ban illegals from driving 18-wheelers and other massive trucks is causing an epidemic of tragic consequences and is a threat to every driver and passenger on the road.
On October 15, Borko Stankovic, an illegal alien from Serbia and Montenegro, was arrested for homicide and criminal recklessness after he crashed his semi-truck into a Subaru in Indiana, killing its driver, 54-year-old Jeffery Eberly.
In June 2024, illegal truck driver Ignacio Cruz‑Mendoza, who had been deported numerous times, veered off a highway in Colorado and flipped his trailer, killing 64-year-old Scott Miller and injuring several other people.
These are just a few examples.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently three million CDL holders in the United States, and two-thirds of those drive heavy-duty big rigs. How many are illegal? It’s hard to know exactly. But during a three-day crackdown in early October, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, working with ICE, arrested 91 illegal immigrants driving tractor trailers in the state.
While federal and state officials can point fingers and try to score political points, there is plenty of blame to go around.
At every level, scores of government workers and politicians have either been incompetent, negligent, or defiant by flat-out refusing to do their duty.
And time and again, innocent people have paid the price, whether that be Laken Riley, Mary Gonzalez, Clarence and Lisa Nelson, Jeffery Eberly, or thousands of others.
The Biden administration refused to secure our borders and released millions of illegal immigrants, many guilty of past criminal activity, into our country.
Judges and district attorneys then failed to properly punish violent criminals, allowing serial thugs to walk the streets.
And now states refuse to enforce English language requirements on truckers and allow illegal aliens who lack the ability to read English or identify road signs to drive multi-ton trucks with the power to take lives in a nanosecond.
The Road Forward
So how do we fix this?
Florida has filed a lawsuit against the states responsible for giving Harjinder Singh a CDL. DOT is threatening to not only withhold $160 million in funds from California but to halt the state’s ability to issue any CDLs.
But none of these problems will really change until public officials and bureaucrats can be personally held accountable for their actions, actions that harm Americans.
In the U.S., government officials have qualified immunity, which means they are protected from lawsuits unless they violate a clearly established constitutional right.
In practice, it is very difficult to sue a government official or for them to ever face criminal charges for gross negligence.
Qualified immunity certainly has its merits. If government officials could be sued or indicted every time they did something that possibly violated any person’s rights, they would be perpetually embroiled in legal battles and no one would dare to hold public office.
But time after time, whether it’s school board members or judges or presidents, government officials will blatantly violate a person’s constitutional rights or refuse to follow the law—and they face absolutely no accountability or personal consequences.
Not only do they not go to jail, they typically don’t even lose their jobs. And many are rewarded with promotions or book deals.
And even if a plaintiff does sue the government and win in court, it’s not the government officials actually responsible for the injustice who pays the price. It’s the taxpayers.
The plaintiff effectively pays himself.
Until it’s the politicians’ money, until the head of a state licensing agency is held criminally liable for putting illegal immigrant truck drivers on the road, nothing will change.
It’s long past time America reevaluates qualified immunity for government officials.
God designed human society to reflect His character of order and justice. As part of this, the government is supposed to preserve life, restrain evil. and uphold what is good, according to Romans 13:1-4.
When civil leaders enforce laws consistently, citizens flourish under stability and protection. But when they abandon those standards, creating one set of rules for some and another for others, they violate God’s design — and chaos and destruction soon follows.
Given this, it’s time that decision-makers in states, cities, and presidential administrations that allow open borders or implement sanctuary policies that shield illegal immigrants are held accountable for their actions — and that includes charging them criminally when their irresponsible actions enable illegal immigrants to kill innocent people on American soil.
Only then will they take their duty seriously and work to protect the American people.
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