BREAKING: Federal judges strike down Trump admin’s trucker license crackdown after deadly crash

November 14, 2025

From Fox News: A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. ruled on Thursday the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) restrictions on immigrants obtaining commercial driver’s licenses cannot be enforced.

The restrictions were announced in September, after an illegal immigrant truck driver was accused of causing a tractor-trailer crash that killed three people in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Harjinder Singh, an Indian citizen who allegedly illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico in 2018, pleaded not guilty to three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter after allegedly jackknifing his truck during an illegal U-turn, causing a van to smash into the side of the tractor-trailer.

The court found the federal government did not follow proper procedure when creating the new rule, or explain how the rule would promote safety.

Judges also noted Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data shows about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses belong to immigrants, though they only account for about 0.2% of fatal crashes.

So far, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has not publicly responded to the ruling. It is expected that the Trump administration will consider other legal options on the matter.

In the case of Harjinder Singh, he had obtained a CDL from the state of California. Multiple red flags were found, as he had:

Failed his CDL knowledge exam in Washington state 10 times within two months
Failed his air brakes knowledge exam twice
Failed an English proficiency test

Last month, another illegal alien from India, 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh, who crossed the southern border in 2022 and was released by the Biden administration, caused a fiery semi-truck crash that killed three people in Southern California, multiple federal law enforcement sources tell Fox News.

This week, after a federal audit, the state of California had to revoke 17,000 commercial drivers’ licenses which had been illegally issued to migrants.

The Sikh Coalition, a civil rights group, is cheering the court’s ruling.

Fateh! This afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a “stay” in the lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s Interim Final Rule (IFR) stripping non-domiciled commercial drivers’ licenses (CDLs). pic.twitter.com/UXNZ2Y9vYF

— Sikh Coalition (@sikh_coalition) November 14, 2025