Illegal immigrant trucker failed CDL test 10 times in 2 months — Washington licensed him anyway

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier confirmed that Harjinder Singh, the Indian national charged with killing three people in a Florida highway crash, failed his commercial driver’s license (CDL) exam ten times in just two months in the state of Washington. The revelation comes as Florida expands its investigation into how sanctuary states issued CDLs to unqualified as well as illegal drivers in violation of federal law.

“As we continue our investigation into California, Washington, and Harjinder Singh, we learned that Singh failed his written exam 10 times, and he took his behind-the-wheel training course at a private CDL school in Washington,” Uthmeier wrote on X. “That school will be hearing from my office soon.”

According to reporting from Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, a senior official in Florida’s Attorney General’s office confirmed that Singh failed his CDL test 10 times between March 10 and May 5, 2023, and failed his air brakes knowledge test twice.

Despite those repeated failures, Washington’s Department of Licensing, operating under sanctuary laws that bar inquiry into immigration status, issued Singh a full-term CDL on July 15, 2023. California later followed by granting him a non-domiciled CDL in 2024, even though he remained in the country illegally.

The Florida Supreme Court filing accuses both states of “willfully ignoring federal safety and immigration standards,” turning American highways into a “lawless frontier of unqualified foreign drivers.”

Singh, who has been charged with vehicular manslaughter, made an illegal U-turn across a Florida highway in August, blocking multiple lanes and killing three people in a minivan that crashed into the semi-truck. Post-crash testing revealed he could identify only one of four traffic signs and answered just two of twelve English-language questions correctly.

The school that trained Singh is now a key target of Florida’s investigation. Officials have not publicly confirmed the name. However, a private Washington CDL school, Skyline CDL, was previously accused of falsifying exams, selling passing scores, and certifying non-English-speaking students.

Skyline had locations in Auburn, Washington, and Vancouver, Oregon, and produced scores of unqualified commercial drivers. Investigators found that up to 80 percent of Skyline’s graduates failed re-tests when ordered to prove their qualifications and that instructors routinely signed off on “English proficiency” forms for students who could not speak the language, the same pattern now at issue in the Singh case.

According to Florida investigators, Singh’s training company “attested that he could speak English proficiently when he could not,” echoing the Skyline model.

Last week, Florida filed a lawsuit directly with the US Supreme Court, suing Washington and California for violating federal law by issuing CDLs to illegal immigrants. The 73-page Bill of Complaint argues that the two states’ “sanctuary” statutes prevent licensing agencies from verifying immigration status or enforcing federal English-language standards.

The suit cites Washington’s Keep Washington Working Act and California’s Values Act, both of which prohibit state agencies, including their Departments of Licensing and Motor Vehicles, from asking about immigration or citizenship status when issuing licenses.

The Florida filing claims that between 2018 and 2025, Washington issued CDLs to at least 685 individuals who failed to prove lawful presence, and that the state “knowingly licensed non-citizens in violation of federal standards.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously blasted the sanctuary states for what he called a “despicable failure” to enforce federal rules. “Washington improperly issued the driver a full-term CDL. Asylum seekers or illegal aliens are NOT allowed to receive this,” Duffy said in an official statement. “If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us.”

Duffy announced that the Department of Transportation is conducting a national audit of all state CDL programs and will move to withhold federal funding from states found to have issued licenses to illegal immigrants.

Florida’s lawsuit and investigation expose what officials are calling a “systemic breakdown” in the nation’s CDL system, one driven by politically motivated sanctuary policies and lax enforcement. Washington’s Department of Licensing routinely ignored English proficiency violations during inspections. In one three-month period, only four out of 6,000 drivers were removed for language deficiencies.

Meanwhile, California openly refused to enforce federal language mandates, stating that English competency requirements were “not part of California law.”

As Florida’s Attorney General put it, “These states have blood on their hands. This tragedy was preventable, and it started with a policy choice to ignore the law.”

The Florida Attorney General’s office says its probe into Washington’s CDL programs, private training schools, and California’s DMV is ongoing, with more revelations expected in the coming weeks.

Florida is seeking an injunction from the Supreme Court to ban both states from issuing CDLs to illegal immigrants and to compel compliance with federal safety and immigration verification rules.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Secretary Duffy warned. “We’re going to clean up the entire system.”