On a night in early October, three brothers were driving home from an athletic competition when an illegal immigrant and a blue state’s bureaucracy changed their lives and the lives of their family members forever — and for the worse. Brothers Zane (21 years old), Toby (16 years old), and Boaz (14 years old) Jackson were on their way home from an American Ninja Warrior competition in Northern Virginia when another car side-swiped them while speeding, according to a family member. The boys came to a stop in their lane, with their fuel pump cut off and their airbags deployed. They called 911 and turned on their hazard lights, reporting that they had no serious injuries. A little over a minute later, that changed.

A freight truck barreling down the highway “plowed” into the brothers’ vehicle, smashing it to pieces. Toby was the only one of the three who did not lose consciousness, despite a fractured back. “He was conscious and saw the whole thing. Toby saw Zane bleeding from the mouth and knew he was going to die. He then focused on trying to keep Boaz alive.” Zane did not survive, while Boaz suffered a “traumatic brain injury” and is still in critical condition in a pediatric intensive care unit. “The neurosurgeon said it was a miracle he lived,” his uncle Levi Gonderman reported. Toby managed to evacuate the wreckage of their car and rushed to the freight truck driver, asking him to call 911. The driver, named Alin and reportedly carrying a Minnesota-issued driver’s license, “barely spoke English and instead handed Toby the phone to talk to 911 dispatchers himself.”

“This tragic event has absolutely rocked the world of the Jackson family and friends. This will be a long road of grieving and patiently waiting for signs of progress in Boaz’s condition,” the family said via a GoFundMe page. “Please join us in prayer for miraculous healing of Boaz’s body. We also ask that you pray for peace from the Holy Spirit for Tim, Kendra, and remaining siblings.”

Tragedies like that suffered by the Jackson family have become increasingly common in the U.S. thanks to the policies of Democrat-run states, where illegal immigrants with little or no English proficiency are given commercial drivers’ licenses (CDLs) and placed behind the wheels of 80,000-pound freight trucks. In August, Indian national and illegal immigrant Harjinder Singh made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike in his freight truck. Three Americans were killed when they did not have time to stop and crashed into Singh’s vehicle.

Singh had been issued a CDL by both Washington and California. Law enforcement authorities confirmed at the time that the illegal immigrant failed a basic English language proficiency (ELP) test, answering only two of 12 questions correctly, and a road traffic signage identification test, answering only one question correctly out of four. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier reported Thursday that Singh had previously failed his CDL test in Washington 10 times in a two-month period and had failed his air brakes knowledge test at least twice, yet was still issued a CDL. The company which provided Singh’s CDL training also falsely attested that he was proficient in English.

Earlier in the week, another Indian national and illegal immigrant, named Jashanpreet Singh, drove a freight truck into backed-up traffic on a California freeway, killing three and injuring at least four others. Dashcam video footage of the horrific event shows Singh smashing into two cars, a pickup truck, and another freight truck before drifting off the road and ripping the front off of a third freight truck while flames leapt from under the hood of his own cab. Singh reportedly illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 and was released into the country by then-President Joe Biden’s administration. Authorities say that he was under the influence of drugs during the crash and have charged him with gross vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated.

“It is a terrible tragedy three innocent people lost their lives due to the reckless open border policies that allowed an illegal alien to be released into the U.S. and drive an 18-wheeler on America’s highways,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This accident follows a disturbing trend of illegal aliens driving 18-wheelers and semi-trucks on America’s roads.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) confirmed that Singh had been issued a CDL by California. “My prayers are with the families of the victims of this tragedy,” DOT Secretary Sean Duffy said of the violent collision. “It would have never happened if [California’s Democrat Governor] Gavin Newsom had followed our new rules. California broke the law and now three people are dead and two are hospitalized. These people deserve justice. There will be consequences.”

Earlier this month, yet another illegal immigrant behind the wheel of a freight truck killed an American in Indiana. Borko Stankovic, who has reportedly been in the U.S. illegally since 2011, did not slow down with traffic in front of his freight truck and turned sharply into oncoming traffic, killing another driver almost instantly. According to authorities, the illegal immigrant held a suspended CDL issued by Democrat-run Illinois and originally belonging to a family member. Stankovic has been charged with felony reckless homicide and felony criminal recklessness.

“It is shocking to hear how easy it was for these aliens, most of whom seem to be here illegally, to obtain commercial driver’s licenses. They should not have been able to obtain any kind of driver’s license, much less one that requires additional training and skills,” Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Stand. “The first problem is that no one knows who these aliens really are. They have not been vetted in any meaningful way. Whatever testing that might have been required was not particularly strict, and the reasonable requirement for them to know English has been ignored.”

“There have been cases reported of human traffickers and smugglers, and probably drug cartels using these truckers for criminal schemes,” Vaughan continued. “In the past, there have been instances of aliens associated with terrorist groups who tried to obtain CDLs, but were caught before they could do anything. We are lucky that no terrorist group has yet taken advantage of the current situation and carried out a larger and more deadly attack using a truck filled with explosives.”

Brandy Perez, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said in comments to TWS, “Leftist states are recklessly handing out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, risking the lives of every family on the road. These liberal politicians grant unvetted foreign nationals access to 80,000-pound trucks they are unqualified to operate on American highways. According to federal law, licenses are privileges for residents legally authorized to work.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has lodged detainer requests with local law enforcement where these events have occurred, and DOT has demanded that blue states like California conform to significantly stricter guidelines for issuing CDLs. A DOT investigation recently found that over 25% of CDLs issued by California were issued improperly. Subsequently, Duffy has withheld over $40 million in federal transportation funding from the state. Following Singh’s deadly recklessness earlier this week, Duffy has given Golden State officials 30 days to identify and revoke all noncompliant CDLs, pledging to withhold further federal funding otherwise.

Other blue states, like New York, have issued CDLs to illegal immigrants under “No Name Given.” For example, Indian national and illegal immigrant Anmol Anmol was arrested earlier this month while driving a freight truck in Oklahoma. New York had issued Anmol a Class A CDL with “No Name Given” listed in place of a first name. Anmol entered the U.S. illegally in 2023 and was released into the country by the Biden administration. “If New York wants to hand out CDLs to illegal immigrants with ‘No Name Given,’ that’s on them. The moment they cross into Oklahoma, they answer to our laws,” Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) said in a statement. Last month alone, Oklahoma law enforcement officers and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested over 100 illegal immigrants carrying CDLs issued by Democrat-run states.

“The establishment media seem to be ignoring these cases. There are far too many of them,” Vaughan lamented. “The tragedies caused by these drivers are heartbreaking and infuriating, yet somehow the establishment media prefers the faux tragedies of illegal aliens being arrested by ICE.”

“The sanctuary state governors see no reason to change the policies. Instead, Governor Newsom has blamed his political allies in the Biden administration for issuing work permits to millions of illegal aliens — which he enthusiastically supported all along, and which does not address his state’s failure to maintain skills and language standards, regardless of their immigration status,” Vaughan asserted. “The sanctuary politicians will not change unless they are forced to. That is why the federal government needs to hold them accountable and impose consequences on the states that are negligent, as well as prosecute the individual drivers if they are negligent or reckless, and take away all the non-resident CDLs that should not have been issued.”

“In addition,” she continued, “the state of Florida has filed a lawsuit against the California and Washington state policies, in connection with the Singh case. Hopefully, the combination of federal and good state actions will put an end to this nonsense and save lives in the process.”

Granting CDLs to illegal immigrants and noncitizens also poses a threat to the American trucking industry. Shannon Everett, co-founder of the policy group American Truckers United, told TWS, “The trucking industry has been going through a replacement cycle for the last five years as the previous administration unleashed an unprecedented wave of illegal immigration into our industry.” He recounted, “We witnessed good American trucking companies being replaced by a black market of truckload capacity propped up with illegal immigrants that were issued Non-Domicile CDLs for the first time in the history of the industry.”

Everett continued, “This artificial supply of truck driver capacity increased crashes, suppressed wages, crashed linehaul rates, risked national security, and bankrupted many American trucking companies. This administration’s efforts will hopefully reset the industry to the way it always was before the great black market replacement began.”

Vaughan made a similar observation. “Americans are right to ask why these aliens were allowed to work in these jobs, even if they could pass the tests. If trucking companies truly have a shortage of qualified drivers, then they should be training Americans and legal immigrants first, and then possibly using legal work visa programs,” she said. “What appears to have happened is that unscrupulous trucking companies, aware of the very lightly-regulated CDL standards, have recruited illegal drivers and used them in large numbers to fulfill lucrative contracts with shippers. They don’t seem to be following laws that regulate safety and working conditions; they are exploiting both the drivers and the system to reap huge profits while endangering the lives of everyone on the road.”

Such predatory companies, Vaughan suggested, are “aided by sanctuary states like California and Washington state that are more interested in defying federal laws by offering licenses and jobs to illegal aliens than they are about assuring highway safety or opening up jobs to legal workers.”

Perez agreed, commenting, “Politicians ignore both immigration and employment law by giving commercial business licenses to illegal aliens who are hired as drivers at a cheap cost to replace American labor.” She insisted, “States must ban all illegal and temporary aliens from obtaining commercial driver’s license, and tie expiration of drivers’ licenses or state identification cards to periods of lawful status for noncitizens, before more American lives are lost.”