It’s a gut-wrenching story. Last Tuesday afternoon, on the routinely busy Florida Turnpike, Harjinder Singh, an illegal alien who entered the country in 2018, was behind the wheel of an 18-wheel tractor trailer, and suddenly attempted to make an illegal U-turn by using an “official use only” turnout reserved for Florida Highway Patrol and other emergency vehicles. In so doing, by the time the cab made it to the median, the rest of the trailer blocking all lanes of traffic, a minivan driven by a 30-year old man with two passengers, a 37-year-old female and a 54-year-old male, never had a chance to react. They plowed into the trailer and all died on the scene.
The tragedy turned to outrage as details over the weekend continued to emerge. Singh, the driver, is now being held by Florida authorities as the investigation has turned into a homicide case, and ICE has put a detainer on him to deport him once Florida has had their way with him.
By Saturday afternoon, a press release by the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Department dropped the other shoe – Not only was he in the country illegally, he was granted a commercial driver’s license in my sanctuary home state of California.
Press release relating to the truck driver charged for vehicular homicide: pic.twitter.com/TGy9QcisuZ
— FLHSMV (@FLHSMV) August 17, 2025
Within minutes, the social media long knives came out for Gavin Newsom and his sanctuary state policies. The White House’s @RapidResponse47 made sure the link to Newsom’s governance was made. In this Fox News story, Deputy Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said this.
This is a devastating tragedy made even worse by the fact that it was totally preventable,” White House Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital in an email. “Illegal aliens that have no legal right to be in our country certainly should not be granted commercial drivers’ licenses.
Newsom personally has not responded to this horrific event, or to the news that the driver was an illegal alien given a commercial license in his state. But that doesn’t mean his whackadoodle press office hasn’t weighed in. Naturally, they’re blaming Donald Trump for being president when Singh snuck over the border.
.@grok who was President in 2018? https://t.co/pQsOuzjc0G pic.twitter.com/cAraBW8fno
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) August 17, 2025
The kiddie corps running Newsom’s press shop can’t seem to make the connection to then-Lt. Gov. Newsom campaigning for AB 60 when it passed in 2015, which streamlined the issuance of normal driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. The big pitch for it was that having these new drivers tested and licensed would be much safer on the highways than unlicensed drivers. The entire need for the proposition in the first place was for the Golden State to true up to its agenda from then-Governor Jerry Brown, to his Lt. Governor, Gavin Newsom, to the Democratic-controlled state legislature that California was a sanctuary state. State officials have resisted cooperation with ICE and Border Patrol for well over a decade since.
Second, they claim it’s California law that one has to be a citizen to be able to obtain a commercial license. Or do they?
Ever since the passage of AB 60, and the ban of illegals from getting commercial licenses, a cottage industry has popped up of bribing Department of Motor Vehicle workers in order to submit false documentation and dole out the commercial licenses anyway. Here is one instance from December, 2019, well after Newsom was installed as Governor.
Last week, the owner of a California truck driving school was sentenced to prison for his part in scheme to sell Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDL) to drivers who did not earn them.
On June 12, 56 year old Paramjit Singh Mangat was sentenced to 14 months in prison and a $10,000 fine after he was convicted on a charge of unlawful production of an identification document and aiding and abetting, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of California.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of $100,000 that had been earned through the CDL scheme.
This was not an isolated case. Three years later, in 2022, this story.
The DOJ said in a news release that the 20 defendants included DMV employees, owners of trucking schools, the affiliates who bribed them and various others who conspired to bribe employees.
According to the DOJ, they were charged with various crimes including, “bribery of public officials, identity fraud, unauthorized access of computers, and conspiracies to commit those offenses.”
The actions of the defendants reportedly helped put unqualified commercial drivers who operated large commercial vehicles on highways despite the drivers not passing their written and driving tests. Employees would accept bribes to enter fraudulent scores for those who did not pass their tests and in some cases had not even taken the test.
There are several such stories. Now it would be fair to report that there are incidents of fraud in other states to get commercial licenses into the hands of those who should not have them. In Kentucky, for instance, there was a bribery scandal where $200 dollars would get you a driver’s license, no legal status needed, if you knew the right people. Attorney General Daniel Cameron got wind of it, and a statewide investigation followed. In California’s cases, it was United States Attorneys that had to bring actions every single time. Not once did state government in the Golden State crack down on the bribery scandal.
In fact, not only did California look the other way while this scandal was ongoing, after COVID, Newsom actually made the potential for obtaining fraudulent commercial licenses easier.
After the virus caused the state to lockdown for a little over a year, or better put, after Newsom, the Democrats, and their union bosses allowed the virus to lockdown the state for a little over a year, once the time came to get commerce moving again, California was all of a sudden short of truck drivers. Newsom stepped in to meet this crisis by issuing an executive order in February of 2022.
Building on Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order and federal partnership last year to address the supply chain crisis, the DMV took action to tackle the commercial truck driver shortage and keep goods moving quickly between California’s largest ports and major distribution centers. The DMV continues to make more driving test appointments available, including Saturday commercial driving test appointments, and redirecting examiners to the areas of greatest demand. As a result, there has been a 20 percent increase in drive tests administered between November 2021-January 2022 (17,243 tests) compared to May-July 2021 (14,312 tests).
In addition to the new federal requirements, Class A or B CDL applicants in California must complete a minimum of 15 hours of behind-the-wheel training and submit proof of completion to the DMV. The training certificate can be submitted online at dmv.ca.gov.
Applicants who received a commercial learner’s permit (CLP) prior to February 7, 2022, do not need to complete the new federal training requirements unless upgrading to a higher class or adding a qualifying endorsement.
With regards to commercial truck drivers, California’s DMV had a need…a need for speed. Get drivers licensed fast. Don’t bother us with the finer details, like if they’re here legally or not. We’ve got stuff to move.
From 2013 to 2023, the last year for which data is available, California issued 1.2 million regular driver’s licenses to known illegal aliens. By January, 2023, 822,000 of those drivers have renewed their licenses. Estimates are there are 2 million total illegal aliens currently enjoying the Golden State’s sanctuary status. This means 60% of them are now licensed.
For commercial licenses, this gets a lot trickier, because California, as I said, has this nagging law on the books banning illegal aliens from getting one. But the black market for them is systemic and widespread, and there’s a buck to be made if you go to the right school and find the right DMV staffer.
Nationally, of the 227 million licensed drivers, 4 million have commercial licenses. That’s a 1.76% ratio. In California, of the 28 million licensees, citizen and illegal alien combined, there are 500,000 commercial licenses issued. That’s a 1.8% ratio, which tracks with the national average.
To extrapolate how many illegal aliens may have commercial driver’s licenses, let’s offer a low and a high estimate. The low side would be 1% of 1.2 million, or 12,000 commercial licenses given to illegals. A high estimate would be 2%, or 24,000.
To help you sleep at night, you might try to convince yourself that it possibly can’t be that many, and that the Florida tragedy is just that – a tragedy.
But knowing that at Newsom’s hand, the process to issue commercial licenses was put on steroids in 2022, and that California has looked the other way at legal status in every other facet of life for well over a decade, you know your hunch is telling you it’s closer to the high side. 24,000 potentially fatal accidents out there, all thanks to the guy who believes he’s going to be your next president in 2028.
Gavin Newsom has F’d Around in all sort of places. This is one of those areas where I pray daily that more innocent motorists just driving down the road somewhere don’t have to Find Out.
