California’s non-compliance with federal directives paved the way for an illegal migrant truck driver to remain on American roads and allegedly kill three people in a horrific highway accident in the state, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Jashanpreet Singh, a 21-year-old Indian national living unlawfully in the U.S., was not only able to keep his Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), but was even able to upgrade it just days before allegedly getting behind the wheel of a big rig truck and causing a multi-vehicle accident, according to a breaking DOT investigation. The new details emerge as the Trump administration attempts to crack down illegal migrant truckers across the country.
The DOT says California ignored emergency directives from the DOT to revoke non-domiciled CDLs from illegal migrants such as Singh.
“My prayers are with the families of the victims of this tragedy,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It would have never happened if [Democratic California Gov.] Gavin Newsom had followed our new rules.”
“California broke the law and now three people are dead and two are hospitalized. These people deserve justice,” Duffy continued. “There will be consequences.”
Singh, a 20-year-old at the time, obtained a non-domiciled CDL on June 27, according to the DOT report. The license included a “K restriction” which limited him to in-state operation only.
In response to a growing number of serious vehicle accidents involving illegal migrant truckers, Duffy issued a large-scale crackdown on non-domiciled drivers on Sept. 26 and formally notified California of “significant compliance failures” upon an audit that revealed one-in-four non-domiciled CDLs sampled were issued illegally in the state. The DOT ordered California to pause issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, among other orders.
Under the nationwide emergency rules, all asylum seekers were prevented from obtaining non-domiciled CDLs, with every state instead being required to apply stricter standards to all renewals, transfers and upgrades of the licenses, according to the DOT.
However, upon turning 21 on Oct. 15, Singh was able to upgrade his driving privileges by removing the “K restriction” on his license, according to the investigation. California processed the upgrade to the illegal migrant’s non-domiciled license without applying the stricter standards set out by the DOT.
Had California complied with the rules, Singh would’ve been required to return to the DMV to remove the K restriction and upgrade his CDL, and at that time he would’ve been found ineligible to retain his non-domiciled CDL due to his status as an asylum seeker, according to the report.
On Oct. 21, just several days after upgrading his license, Singh allegedly got behind the wheel of a semi-truck under the influence of drugs and rammed into multiple cars in San Bernardino County, California, killing three people in the process.
Singh first entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 through the southern border and was released by the Biden administration, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has since lodged a detainer request for him with local law enforcement.
“Gavin Newsom was explicitly warned California’s CDL program was dangerously broken,” the DOT report stated. “The USDOT’s emergency rule was issued to explicitly prevent drivers like Singh from getting behind the wheel of commercial motor vehicles.”
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