(ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FLORIDA) Three people were killed on Florida’s Turnpike when a minivan smashed under a tractor-trailer during an illegal U-turn on August 12, 2025, a crash that has since become the center of a national fight over how states issue commercial driver’s licenses to non-citizens. The truck’s driver, Harjinder Singh, an India-born resident of California, was arrested on three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter, extradited to Florida, and now faces prosecution as federal and state officials argue over whether he should ever have been allowed on the road.
The Department of Homeland Security said Singh had been in the United States without lawful status since 2018 after crossing the southern border from Mexico and was already in removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review when the crash occurred. Florida highway officials added that he was not proficient in English and had a prior speeding citation in New Mexico. The Florida crash killed the minivan’s driver and two passengers; Singh and his passenger were not injured.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has used Singh’s case to accuse California of ignoring federal directions on non-citizen licensing.
“My prayers are with the families of the victims of this tragedy. It would have never happened if 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,” he said.
His department’s audit concluded that one in four of the 145 non-citizen CDLs reviewed in California since June 2025 were improperly issued, and he threatened to revoke $160 million in federal funding unless the state audits and revokes noncompliant licenses within 30 days. The audit also flagged improper CDL issuance in Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington.
In California, officials under Gov. Gavin Newsom dispute the findings, saying the state complies with federal law and that California’s commercial drivers have a lower crash rate than the national average. But Singh’s path to the cab has drawn scrutiny from multiple agencies. Records show he was issued a commercial driver’s license in Washington in 2023 that was improperly a full-term CDL rather than the time-limited, non-domiciled credential reserved for certain nonimmigrant visa holders. He later obtained a non-domiciled CDL in California. A post-crash review by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) found he had been licensed based on a valid Employment Authorization Document, but would not qualify under new rules that require an I-94 arrival record showing specific employment-based nonimmigrant status. That change is among the federal steps rolled out after a series of deadly wrecks involving non-domiciled CDL holders in 2025.
Singh’s attorney, Natalie Knight-Tai, declined to comment on the case. The families of the three people killed in St. Lucie County have not been publicly identified, but the scale of the loss and the details surrounding the crash pushed a long-simmering licensing debate into a full boil. In that debate, the phrase No Name Given has become a rallying cry and a point of confusion, pulled into broader claims of “CDL fraud” and government failure.
The “No Name Given” controversy erupted when Oklahoma Gov. J. Kevin Stitt tweeted a photo of a New York CDL showing “No Name Given” where a first name would typically appear, asserting that the card had been issued to an undocumented immigrant.
“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,” he said.
Rep. Elise Stefanik amplified the claim, tying it to New York’s 2019 “Green Light Law.”
“The latest bombshell discovery is that Kathy Hochul’s dangerous and irresponsible ‘Green Light Law,’ allows criminal illegal immigrants to be issued commercial drivers licenses in some cases shockingly labeled ‘No Name Given,’ allowing them to operate 80,000-pound commercial vehicles across the country,” she wrote.
Subsequent fact-checks, however, reported that “No Name Given” is a long-standing federal placeholder used for applicants with a single legal name, such as mononyms common in parts of Indonesia, and not evidence of unlawful status or identity deception. New York’s Green Light Law allows undocumented immigrants to obtain standard — non-commercial — driver’s licenses if they prove identity, date of birth, and residency, but the law does not authorize commercial driver’s licenses. The clash between political claims and administrative practice has left drivers, trucking companies, and licensing offices caught in the middle as federal rules tighten and audits expand.
The tightening came formally on September 26, 2025, when the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered states to restrict non-domiciled CDLs to applicants in only three specified visa categories and to verify immigration status against a federal database before issuing or renewing a CDL. Licenses under the new regime are valid for up to one year or until the visa expires, whichever comes first. FMCSA has also told states to ensure English proficiency is tested and documented and to confirm medical certification status at issuance and renewal. Federal guidance on CDL eligibility and state obligations is outlined by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The Florida crash is the most lethal incident in a year marked by fatal collisions involving non-citizen or non-domiciled CDL holders. On July 11, 2025, a driver with a non-domiciled CDL crashed into a concrete wall on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and the truck fell into the Delaware River, killing the driver. On May 6, 2025, in Thomasville, Alabama, another driver — a non-citizen with a valid Employment Authorization Document but missing other required immigration paperwork — plowed into four vehicles at a red light, killing two people and injuring four. He had held his CDL for less than six weeks, failed his initial skills test, and was on his third day of employment when the crash occurred. On March 14, 2025, in Austin, Texas, a non-domiciled CDL holder with prior citations and no current medical certificate caused a multi-vehicle collision. And on January 19, 2025, in West Virginia, a driver who had entered the U.S. unlawfully and held a non-domiciled CDL was charged with negligent homicide after a crash on a bridge over Cheat Lake sent a vehicle into the water, killing the occupant.
Those cases, along with the St. Lucie County crash, have fueled a rapid federal crackdown and a political storm stretching from Sacramento to Albany and Washington. Duffy’s threat to yank $160 million from California unless it audits and revokes improperly issued licenses within 30 days set off a war of words with state officials, even as trucking companies and insurers assess how the new screening rules will affect hiring and coverage. For families in Florida, Alabama, West Virginia, and Texas, the fight in capitals can feel far away from the reality of funerals and police reports. In St. Lucie County, troopers said the minivan became lodged under the trailer following Singh’s illegal U-turn, a detail that fed public anger and calls for answers about who was allowed to drive freight across state lines and on what basis.
At the core of the federal review is who qualifies for a non-domiciled CDL and how states should validate identity, immigration status, and driving fitness. Before the September rules, some states, including California and Washington, issued non-domiciled CDLs to drivers with Employment Authorization Documents alone, without a specific employment-based visa reflected in the I-94 record. FMCSA’s post-crash investigation into Singh underscored that gap, and officials now stress that EADs on their own are no longer sufficient. Singh’s licensing history — a full-term CDL in Washington in 2023 that should have been time-limited, followed by a California non-domiciled CDL — has been cited by federal officials as an example of administrative lapses they are pressing states to correct swiftly.
California’s response has sought to decouple the broader safety record of its commercial drivers from individual cases and federal critiques. The state argues that its crash rate among CDL holders is lower than the national norm and that its licensing program adheres to law. But Duffy’s audit did not stop at California. Washington was among the states cited for improper issuance, alongside Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Texas. The one-in-four error rate in California’s sample of 145 non-citizen CDLs since June 2025 looms large in the political narrative, even as officials in several states request more time to align databases and retrain staff on verification steps.
For Singh, the legal consequences are now unfolding on two tracks. In Florida, prosecutors are preparing a case built on the Turnpike collision, his alleged illegal U-turn, and the resulting deaths. In the immigration system, his removal case was already before an immigration judge at the time of the crash, according to DHS. The intertwining of criminal charges and immigration proceedings makes his situation a flashpoint example for campaign trail arguments about border enforcement and public safety. The renewed talk of “CDL fraud” also reflects public frustration at administrative failures more than evidence of widespread identity scams, according to officials and auditors who say most problems arise from documentation mismatches and inconsistent state-level practices.
The outcry over No Name Given has further muddied the debate. While the slogan has become a byword online for supposed lax licensing, officials who manage identity records point out that the placeholder was designed decades ago to accommodate applicants with just one legal name, and is not a marker of unlawful status. New York’s Green Light Law, often invoked in the controversy, does not authorize issuance of commercial driver’s licenses; it applies to standard licenses and imposes its own proof requirements. Even so, the imagery of a CDL with “No Name Given” printed on it has shifted attention to New York just as Duffy focused enforcement energy on California’s program.
Political stakes are high as the presidential campaign accelerates. President Donald Trump and Secretary Duffy have cast the crashes as proof of the need for stricter immigration and licensing enforcement. California, insisting it has a safer track record than critics admit, portrays the federal push as punitive and political. New York faces attacks over a law that does not, in fact, permit commercial licensing, while Oklahoma’s governor underscores his state’s readiness to enforce its own roads policy. As the rhetoric escalates, state motor vehicle agencies are tasked with auditing files, contacting drivers whose paperwork may no longer suffice, and integrating new federal verification checks, all on a tight clock and under the threat of lost funds.
Back in Florida, the facts of the St. Lucie County crash continue to anchor the national argument in human loss. Troopers said the minivan’s driver and two passengers died at the scene; their names have not been released. Investigators documented the illegal U-turn by Singh’s tractor-trailer and the minivan’s impact that left the smaller vehicle lodged underneath. Those details, spelled out in early reports, became central to Duffy’s claim that better vetting would have kept Singh off the road. Whether or not the new federal rules would have prevented this crash, the case has already reshaped how states handle non-domiciled CDLs and how campaigns talk about immigration and road safety in the same breath.
Singh’s prosecution will test how a criminal court weighs the immediate cause of a crash — an illegal U-turn on a tolled highway — against the broader questions of who licensed the driver and under what authority. It will also likely surface the bureaucracy that followed him from Washington to California: the 2023 full-term CDL that auditors say never should have been issued, the later non-domiciled CDL, the English proficiency concerns, and the New Mexico speeding citation that did not stop him from working behind the wheel. His attorney, Natalie Knight-Tai, has declined to comment, leaving the record to be built by state troopers, federal auditors, and immigration officials.
What began as a tragedy on a Florida highway has widened into a reckoning over the rules that decide who can drive an 80,000-pound rig across state lines. The swift rollout of new federal requirements on September 26, 2025, the threat to pull $160 million from California, and the national audit sweeping through six states show how quickly a single case can reshape policy. The tug-of-war over labels like No Name Given and claims of “CDL fraud” will continue, fueled by politics and online outrage. For the families in Florida and elsewhere, the measure of those changes will be whether they prevent another late-night call from a highway patrol officer and another set of lives cut short beneath a trailer on a busy American road.
This Article in a Nutshell
The August 12, 2025 St. Lucie County crash killed three and put Harjinder Singh — arrested on multiple homicide charges — at the center of a national debate over non-citizen commercial driver’s licenses. DHS says Singh entered without lawful status in 2018; FMCSA found his license relied on an Employment Authorization Document and may not meet newly tightened federal standards. A DOT audit found improper non-citizen CDLs in several states and threatened $160 million in California funding unless corrective audits occur within 30 days, prompting federal rules on visa categories, English proficiency, medical certification, and verification.
