California’s refusal to follow federal safety directives allowed an undocumented truck driver to retain and upgrade his commercial driving privileges, and the Department of Transportation ties that failure to a deadly multi-vehicle crash. The incident has become a flashpoint in a national debate over who gets access to commercial licenses and how strict states should be when the federal government issues emergency rules. Transportation officials say the tragedy was preventable and point a finger at state officials who ignored clear guidance. Families are grieving and officials are promising consequences.
The Department of Transportation report lays out how Jashanpreet Singh, an Indian national living unlawfully in the U.S., kept a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license and even upgraded it days before the crash. The DOT found California did not apply the heightened checks required under a new emergency rule aimed at preventing ineligible non-citizens from operating commercial vehicles. That lapse allowed Singh to remove a restriction on his license and immediately expand his driving privileges.
On Oct. 21, authorities say Singh was behind the wheel of a semi-truck while under the influence and struck multiple vehicles in San Bernardino County, killing three people and injuring others. The DOT report connects that sequence of events to the state’s failure to follow the emergency measures issued to protect public safety. Republican officials and safety advocates argue this chain shows why federal standards must be enforced, not ignored.
Federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded sharply and personally to the findings. “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.” Those words capture the Republican position that federal action was reasonable and could have stopped this outcome.
The DOT’s audit of California’s CDL program reportedly found that one in four sampled non-domiciled commercial licenses had been issued improperly. That led the agency to demand a pause on issuing those licenses while stricter standards were applied for renewals, transfers and upgrades. The emergency rule specifically barred asylum seekers from obtaining non-domiciled CDLs and required closer scrutiny whenever license conditions changed.
Despite that instruction, California processed the upgrade to Singh’s license without enforcing the additional checks the DOT demanded. Had the state complied, the DOT says Singh would have been flagged as ineligible when he tried to remove the limiting “K restriction.” Instead, the upgrade went through and Singh was later accused of driving a commercial vehicle while impaired and causing fatal chaos on the highway.
“California broke the law and now three people are dead and two are hospitalized. These people deserve justice,” Duffy continued. “There will be consequences.” Those are strong words aimed directly at state leadership, reflecting a broader Republican narrative that state resistance to federal safety directives endangered American lives. Lawmakers calling for investigations say accountability must follow when policy failures have deadly results.
Singh’s entry into the country in 2022 and his release by federal authorities are part of the picture federal officials are citing to argue for firmer national guardrails. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lodged a detainer request, and federal agencies are coordinating with local law enforcement as criminal and immigration proceedings proceed. For critics of California’s approach, those facts underline the risks of lax enforcement combined with permissive state licensing practices.
The DOT report also placed an explicit rebuke on California leadership. “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.” Republicans see that language as validation that federal oversight was necessary and that refusal to cooperate had real-world consequences.
The visual record of the crash circulated on local newscasts and online, showing the scale of destruction and the human cost in clear terms. 
As investigations continue, the clash over federal authority and state compliance is likely to harden, with Republicans pressing for enforcement and reforms to prevent similar tragedies. Victims’ families want answers and accountability, and federal officials vow to use available tools to prevent noncompliance. The stakes are now firmly public safety and the trust Americans place in both state and federal systems.
