A quiet Southern California freeway turned into a scene of horror when a tractor-trailer barreled into stopped traffic on Interstate 10 in Ontario, killing three Americans and injuring several others in a devastating chain-reaction crash. Authorities have identified the driver as 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh, who was arrested at the scene and is now facing multiple counts of vehicular manslaughter and related felony charges as investigators piece together why a heavy commercial truck failed to stop.
What followed the wreck should make every patriotic American furious: federal and state back-and-forth over the driver’s immigration paperwork rather than a straight answer about public safety. Homeland Security and ICE say Singh entered the country in 2022 and an immigration detainer has been requested, while California officials point to federal employment authorization documents that allowed him to obtain a real ID and a commercial license — a bureaucratic mess that cost three lives.
Washington tried to put a new rule in place in late September to stop exactly this kind of risk by limiting non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses to specific employment visas, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has openly blamed permissive state policies for putting unvetted drivers on the road. If states like California refuse to follow the federal rule, the FMCSA has warned it will withhold significant highway funds and force a re-review of improperly issued licenses — real leverage that should be used to protect Americans.
As the furious political debate plays out, the criminal case itself has evolved: recent filings and toxicology reports indicate Singh was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash, yet prosecutors still allege gross negligence for speeding into stopped traffic. That nuance doesn’t absolve the policy failures that allowed him to be behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler in the first place; whether impaired or sober, a truck driver who plows into halted cars and ignites a fireball should never have been driving interstate freight.
Conservative commentators and officials — rightly — have pounced on this story as proof that left-wing sanctuary policies and lax border enforcement have real, deadly consequences for ordinary Americans. When state bureaucrats put political signaling above safety and federal authorities must step in to threaten the loss of hundreds of millions in highway funding to enforce the law, voters should demand accountability from the officials who made those choices.
This should be a wake-up call for every governor and every lawmaker who still treats border and licensing rules as a partisan talking point instead of a public-safety imperative. Protecting American lives means enforcing immigration laws, tightening CDL eligibility to those who are legally present and properly vetted, and taking immediate action against any agency or official who lets ideology trump common sense — anything less is a betrayal of the hardworking families who pay the bills and expect their roads to be safe.
