>> Continued From the Previous Page <<
San Joaquin County prosecutors reportedly booked him on charges including vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, felony hit-and-run involving death, and resisting law enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later lodged a detainer request.
The case immediately ignited outrage inside the Trump administration, where officials have repeatedly accused California of undermining federal transportation and immigration enforcement.
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis delivered one of the administration’s harshest responses yet.
“This criminal illegal alien from India should never have been behind the wheel of a semi-truck and allowed to kill two innocent people in a multi-vehicle crash in California.”
The controversy escalated even further after Duffy publicly confirmed California issued Singh a commercial driver’s license despite repeated federal warnings aimed directly at the state’s licensing practices.
For months, the Department of Transportation had accused California of refusing to fully comply with new federal directives concerning non-domiciled CDLs issued to migrants lacking legal work authorization.
Back in September 2025, Duffy ordered states nationwide to revoke improperly issued commercial licenses and halt new approvals for applicants who could not legally work in the United States.
Nearly every state moved to comply.
California did not.
Federal investigators later concluded that California’s DMV had issued tens of thousands of questionable commercial licenses to individuals whose immigration status had expired or whose legal authorization was under dispute.
The state agreed to revoke thousands of those licenses earlier this year, but tensions exploded again after California officials announced delays that effectively extended many licenses for weeks longer.
Duffy blasted the move publicly, posting: “Gavin Newsom is lying.”
The federal government eventually responded by withholding approximately $160 million in highway funding tied to transportation compliance requirements.
Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom and his allies accused the administration of weaponizing transportation policy for political gain.
But the latest crash has reopened an even more explosive issue for critics of California’s immigration and licensing policies.
Federal officials say Manvir Singh is now the fourth truck driver with the surname Singh tied to deadly crashes involving migrants operating commercial vehicles in recent years.
One of the earlier cases involved Jashanpreet Singh, who authorities say crashed a semi into stopped traffic near Ontario, California, allegedly while impaired, killing three people.
Another driver, Kamalpreet Singh, was accused of causing a fatal trucking accident in Washington state after allegedly pinning a victim between two commercial vehicles.
A third driver, Harjinder Singh, reportedly failed portions of commercial licensing tests multiple times before later becoming involved in a deadly crash in Florida.
DHS officials now warn the incidents represent what they describe as “a growing trend involving illegal immigrant commercial drivers from India.”
The mounting fatalities have sparked fresh pressure from congressional Republicans demanding tougher licensing enforcement nationwide.
Jim Banks sharply condemned the situation, declaring: “So many innocent lives have been lost because of illegals on our roads. It makes me sick reading about these preventable tragedies.”
Banks has since backed legislation known as the Dalilah Law, named after five-year-old Dalilah Coleman, who suffered devastating injuries in a separate trucking collision involving a migrant driver operating with a California-issued CDL.
Critics now argue the issue extends far beyond bureaucratic disputes between Sacramento and Washington.
To them, the Highway 99 tragedy represents the deadly intersection of open-border immigration policies and weakened enforcement standards for commercial drivers operating massive vehicles on American highways.
Supporters of the administration say California was repeatedly warned about the dangers and ignored every opportunity to change course.
Duffy himself framed the issue in stark terms after earlier fatal crashes tied to similar cases.
“I gave the guidance, Gavin Newsom didn’t follow it, and three people are now dead because he refused to follow the rules.”
With another deadly collision now dominating headlines, pressure is mounting once again on California leaders to explain why federal warnings were ignored while more unqualified commercial drivers allegedly remained on the road.
