Illegal and Non-Domiciled CDL Holders Keep Killing Americans After Years of Licensing Loopholes

A Haitian parolee with a Massachusetts non-domiciled commercial license is charged with killing a Pennsylvania state trooper. An Uzbek visa holder who failed an English test after the crash is charged with killing a 21-year-old college goalkeeper on Interstate 71. An Indian national who failed the knowledge exam 10 times still left Florida’s Turnpike with three dead, including a high-school basketball coach and his wife. Those are not metaphors. They are charging documents, and they are why the Trump Transportation and Homeland Security departments spent the first half of 2026 ripping up a licensing pipeline that should never have existed.

On July 1, prosecutors say, Michael Bon left Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, struck a marked State Police cruiser during a roadside inspection, and hit Trooper Michael E. Pahira Jr., 44. Both vehicles burned. Pahira died. Bon, an illegal Haitian immigrant who entered in July 2024 under Biden-era humanitarian parole, had a Massachusetts non-domiciled CDL that was renewed before the Trump administration barred those licenses for ineligible drivers. DHS had already terminated his parole and ordered him removed in June 2025. He was still here, still in a truck. He is charged with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, reckless driving, and six lesser counts. He is presumed innocent.

On July 5, Bekhzod Asrarov, 42, an Uzbek national who entered on a Biden-era visa and held an Ohio CDL, allegedly rear-ended a vehicle on I-71 in Madison County and killed Tobias “Toby” Forsythe, 21, a goalkeeper at UMass Lowell. After the crash he failed an English-proficiency test, needed Google Translate to talk to troopers, and, prosecutors say, tried to hide the dash camera and destroy three phones and his electronic logging device.

The list is longer. Harjinder Singh, 28, an illegal immigrant from India, is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide after a July 2025 illegal U-turn on Florida’s Turnpike killed Clarence Nelson, 76, an assistant coach at Pomona High School, his wife Lisa Nelson, 69, and a third victim. Singh failed the CDL knowledge exam 10 times and the air-brakes exam twice, then received a Washington state CDL that certified his English. He failed the English and road-sign tests after the crash. Kamalpreet Singh, who crossed illegally in December 2023 and was released by Border Patrol, is charged in the December 2025 death of Robert B. Pearson, 29, in Washington state. In Indiana, Singh Sukhdeep, in the country illegally, is charged in the February death of Terry Schultz, 64, after running a red light; separately, Kyrgyz national Bekzhan Beishekeev is in ICE custody after a head-on crash in Jay County that killed four people, including members of an Amish community. In California, a DOT review found Jashanpreet Singh, 21, never should have been issued a state CDL before an October 2025 crash that killed three. Manvir Singh, an illegal immigrant from India, is accused in a May hit-and-run near Lodi that killed two.

The policy that produced those licenses had a name: the non-domiciled CDL, handed to people who do not live here, often with a translator in the exam room and a mill willing to sign the English box. Lewie Pugh, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the industry spent 40 years talking itself into lower standards. “When you’re on the highway in an emergency, you don’t have time to be using a translation service,” he said. “You need to be able to tell law enforcement or first responders what’s going on.”

The administration has not waited for another funeral to write a rule. Border czar Tom Homan said more than 28,000 commercial licenses for ineligible drivers, including noncitizens, had been revoked by May 1. The department barred states from issuing or renewing non-domiciled CDLs to ineligible drivers, restored federal English-proficiency enforcement, and tightened the rules for foreign truckers. Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., has a bill to put a federal minimum of behind-the-wheel hours on the books and lock the non-domiciled ban into statute. Senate Republicans have a companion English-proficiency bill.

Revocations do not raise the dead. They do tell every DMV that the era of waving a man who cannot read an American road sign into an 80,000-pound rig is over. The families on this list already paid for the old policy. The midterm question is whether any state is still issuing the next license.