DOT: NY Unlawfully Issuing CDLs; Extra Foreigners Trigger Deadly Crashes
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced today that an audit of New York state found that more than 50 percent of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued by the state were illegal.
The report, which summarizes a letter from FMCSA chief Derek Barrs to far-left Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul and Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Commissioner Mark Schroeder, was released on the heels of two more traffic fatalities involving foreign truck drivers.
One involved an English-illiterate Chinese national who received a CDL from New York. Another involved yet a fourth Indian illegal alien released into the country by the Biden administration.
The Report
The report from the FMCSA’s parent Transportation Department offers the Cliffs Notes on Barrs’ 20-page letter to Hochul and Schroeder. During an audit in the spring, “FMCSA discovered that 101 of the driver records sampled showed that DMV issued a non-domiciled CDL for a period of validity that exceeded the driver’s lawful presence document(s),” the letter says.
The letter cites all 101 instances.
The audit also divulged 107 unlawful non-domiciled CDLs out of 200 audited, “a grossly unacceptable deviation from FMCSA’s regulations when issuing credentials to operate commercial motor vehicles.”
But in addition to that 53.5 percent rate of unlawful CDLs, the audit also found that the state “DMV’s systems defaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired,” DOT reported.
And “New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States,” the report continued. Worse still, “New York DMV officials confirmed that their licensing system is programmed to default to an automatic 8-year expiration for non-REAL ID CDLs — intentionally disregarding the expiration of a foreign driver’s lawful presence in the U.S.”
Continued DOT:
The audit also uncovered numerous cases where the New York DMV relied upon expired lawful presence documents to issue commercial licenses. This allowed foreign drivers whose lawful status in the United States had expired to obtain a CDL.
The Department has ordered New York to immediately revoke every illegally issued license held by these foreign drivers and come into compliance or risk losing approximately $73 million in federal highway funding.
On X, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy warned that New York had 30 days to comply.
Fatal Accident Caused by Chinese National With Illegal CDL
Yesterday, Duffy targeted New York’s giving a CDL to a Chinese national who can’t speak English. “This is EXACTLY why @POTUS and I are fighting to keep DANGEROUS foreign drivers OFF our roads,” he wrote.
Authorities allege that Huang Yisong, 54, was “watching a video on his phone when he rear-ended a tractor-trailer, causing a chain-reaction crash that killed a 31-year-old truck driver and injured a dozen others” in Tennessee, the New York Post reported.
WKRN offered details about the wreck:
According to [Tennessee Highway Patrol] reports, a Vanhool tour bus rear-ended a Freightliner tractor-trailer while both were in the right lane. The tour bus was then rear-ended by a Volvo tractor-trailer. Reports said both tractor-trailers pulled off to the right shoulder after impact, while the tour bus veered across the left lane and came to a stop in the path of a Volkswagen Jetta. The Volkswagen reportedly hit the bus’s rear before coming to a stop in the right lane.
“Officials said [Yisong] failed an English proficiency test when questioned by police,” the Post reported.
New York officials blamed the federal government, the newspaper continued. “Let’s be clear,” a DMV spokesman told the Post:
Regulating commercial driver licenses is a federal responsibility. It is the height of hypocrisy for leaders in Washington to place blame at states for following federal rules.
Another Day, Another Fatality Involving an Indian Illegal
That weak excuse is a dog that won’t hunt. States are responsible for complying with federal regulations, including those that require truck drivers to speak English. Then again, far-left sanctuaries don’t much care for federal law and regulations, a reason authorities in Washington state ignored a detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and released an illegal-alien Mexican truck driver who was involved in a crash.
The fatality in Tennessee isn’t the first involving an English-illiterate truck driver.
Harjinder Singh, the illegal Indian truck driver charged in a triple vehicular homicide in Florida in August, failed an English test after that wreck. Despite not speaking English, he had CDLs from Washington and California.
In October, Indian illegal Jashanpreet Singh was charged in yet another triple fatality. Caught and released at the border during the Biden administration, he needed an interpreter after the crash.
Last month in Oregon, cops allege, yet another Indian illegal whom the Biden administration caught and released at the border, Rajinder Kumar, killed a newlywed couple who had been married just 16 days. He held a CDL from California.
Last year, Indian illegal Partap Singh nearly killed a little girl in California. He jumped the border in October 2022, and the Biden administration promptly released him.
And the parade of Indian illegals careening down American highways will continue, apparently, for the foreseeable future.
Just yesterday, in Washington, “a 2020 Freightliner Cascadia semi driven by 25-year-old Kamalpreet Singh of Elk Grove, California struck the rear of a blue 2010 Mazda 3 sedan that had stopped behind a white 2016 Peterbilt truck,” the Auburn Examiner reported:
The Freightliner overrode the back of the Mazda and pushed it under the rear of the Peterbilt.
Troopers said the engine compartment of the Mazda caught fire after the impact but the flames were quickly extinguished. The Freightliner and Mazda came to rest in the left lane and the Peterbilt on the right shoulder.
Sadly, the driver of the Mazda, identified as Robert B. Pearson, 29, of Bonney Lake, died at the scene. Next of kin notifications were completed by State Patrol sergeants, the agency said.
Fox News’ Bill Melugin divulged Singh’s immigration status today. The Border Patrol caught him after he jumped the border on Christmas Eve, 2023, then released him.
But for that, Pearson might be alive.
