Semi-truck driver in country illegally pleads not guilty in deadly DUI crash as license under scrutiny
A semi-truck driver arrested in connection with an alleged DUI crash on a California highway that killed three people pleaded not guilty on Friday, amid scrutiny over the licensing of the 21-year-old suspect, who federal authorities say is in the United States illegally.
Prosecutors charge that the driver, identified by authorities as Jashanpreet Singh, was driving at a high rate of speed and under the influence of drugs when he rammed into stopped traffic, causing a chain-reaction crash on Interstate 10 in Ontario on Tuesday. Three people were killed and at least three others injured in the multi-vehicle crash, according to the criminal complaint.
Singh pleaded not guilty to three counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and one count of driving under the influence of a drug causing injury during his initial court appearance in a Rancho Cucamonga court on Friday.
He was appointed a public defender and remains held without bail. His next court appearance has been scheduled for Nov. 4. A Punjabi interpreter will be required at his next hearing, according to court filings.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lodged an arrest detainer for Singh, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which said he is in the U.S. illegally from India, entering through the southern border in 2022.
He was issued a commercial driver's license, or CDL, by California, according to the Department of Transportation, which said Singh is an asylum-seeker. On Friday, the agency said Singh should have been ineligible to keep his CDL days before the deadly crash under new emergency actions targeting noncitizens, including asylum-seekers.
In September, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced stricter eligibility requirements for noncitizens seeking CDLs. The new federal actions, which went into effect on Sept. 26, prevent all asylum-seekers from obtaining non-domiciled CDLs, according to the DOT.
Singh was issued a restricted, non-domiciled CDL on June 27, according to the DOT. When he turned 21 on Oct. 15, the California Department of Motor Vehicles allegedly removed the restriction and upgraded Singh's license "without applying the stricter standards" as required by the emergency actions, the DOT said.
According to the DOT, Singh should have instead returned to the DMV on or after Oct. 15 to upgrade his CDL, at which point he "would have been subject to the emergency rule and found ineligible to retain the non-domiciled CDL due to Singh’s status as an asylum seeker," the agency said.
"Gavin Newsom was explicitly warned California's CDL program was dangerously broken," the DOT said in a press release. "The USDOT's emergency rule was issued to explicitly prevent drivers like Singh from getting behind the wheel of commercial motor vehicles."
ABC News has reached out to the California DMV and the California State Transportation Agency for comment but has not yet received a response.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said the federal government approved and renewed Singh's federal employment authorization "multiple times -- which allowed him to obtain a commercial driver's license in accordance with federal law."
"This is tragic, and as with every tragedy over the last ten months, Secretary Noem has ordered Secretary Duffy to look for every opportunity to manipulate the facts to score cheap political points," his office said in a statement.
