Calif. Issued Commercial License to Illegal Charged in Fatal Crash

The semitruck driver accused of causing an eight-vehicle, chain-reaction crash that killed three people on a Southern California highway Tuesday is a 21-year-old illegal immigrant from India who had a commercial driver's license issued by the state.

The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an arrest detainer — a request to hold a person for potential deportation — for Jashanpreet Singh of Yuba City, California.

Singh has been charged with three counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of driving under the influence causing injury, with an enhancement for great bodily injury and multiple victims.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office said in a news release that Singh is to be arraigned Friday in Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court.

He is being held without bail.

DHS said Singh entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 through the southern border and was released into the country under the Biden administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that California issued Singh a commercial driver's license. ABC News also reported, citing the California Department of Motor Vehicles, that Singh's license was set to expire in October 2026.

Leavitt's briefing aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform.

"I can confirm that California gave this individual a license, and it is something that the Department of Transportation has already looked into," Leavitt said.

"I know Secretary [Sean] Duffy, who's doing a phenomenal job, has spoken on this many times in the crackdown that the Department of Transportation is taking on these licenses that are wrongfully being issued to people who clearly do not deserve to uphold these positions.

"These tragedies are following a disturbing pattern of these criminal illegal aliens being issued commercial vehicle licenses."

In August, an illegal immigrant truck driver from India was charged in a Florida crash that killed three people.

Federal investigators found he obtained a California commercial driver's license despite not having lawful immigration status.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office has denied that the state issues CDLs to illegal immigrants, saying state law requires applicants to provide proof of legal presence in the U.S.

But Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, blasted the state's record, arguing that "California's loose licensing policies allowed unqualified illegal aliens to operate 18-wheelers on U.S. roads."

The crash unfolded Tuesday at about 1:10 p.m. local time when Singh allegedly failed to apply his brakes as traffic was slowing on Interstate 10 in Ontario, California.

Dashboard-camera video obtained by KABC-TV showed the truck slam into the car in front of it, plow through two other passenger vehicles, and then strike another truck.

Among those killed were former Pomona High School assistant basketball coach Clarence Nelson and his wife, Lisa, KTLA-TV reported.

The name of the third person killed has not been released.

By Wednesday night, all but one of the four people hospitalized in connection with the crash — including Singh — had been released from a hospital, California Highway Patrol spokesperson Rodrigo Jimenez told the Los Angeles Times.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson called the incident a "heinous tragedy" that was "easily avoidable if the defendant was not driving in a grossly negligent manner and impaired."

"Had the rule of law been followed by state and federal officials, the defendant should have never been in California at all," he said in the release.

It is the second time this week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued an arrest detainer for an illegal immigrant truck driver involved in a fatal crash.

On Tuesday, a detainer was issued in Indiana for Borko Stankovic, a Serbia and Montenegro national who was arrested Oct. 15 on charges of reckless homicide and criminal recklessness.

DHS said Stankovic was operating a semitruck without a valid commercial license when he swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a Subaru Crosstrek. The driver of the Subaru, Jeffrey Eberly, died at the scene.

DHS said Stankovic has been in the U.S. illegally since February 2011, when his nonimmigrant visa status expired.