Three Americans are dead because California handed a license to an illegal alien who failed his English test – and the Supreme Court just told Florida it can do nothing about it.
Now the same court that lectures America about equal justice just slammed the door on the only state that tried to hold California accountable.
What the justices did Tuesday will haunt every family that drives a highway near an 18-wheeler – and they didn't even bother to explain why.
The Crash That Started Everything
On August 12, 2025, Harjinder Singh – an Indian national who crossed the border illegally in 2018 – was behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer on Florida's Turnpike near Fort Pierce.
He tried to make an illegal U-turn through an "Official Use Only" access point, stretching his rig across every northbound lane.
A minivan carrying Herby Dufresne, 30, of Florida City; Rodrigue Dor, 54, of Miami; and Faniola Joseph, 37, of Pompano Beach had no time to stop.
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Two died at the scene.
Dufresne was airlifted to the hospital and died that evening.
Singh was not injured.
He had already failed an English proficiency test required for commercial drivers – a federal safety standard California ignored.
After the crash, Singh left Florida for California.
Florida's Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins personally flew across the country to bring him back.
California's License Machine and the $158 Million Penalty
The crash wasn't a fluke – it was the inevitable result of a state that treats federal trucking safety regulations as optional.
A federal audit by the Department of Transportation found that more than one in four non-domiciled CDLs sampled in California were issued in violation of federal law.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called it what it was – a systemic collapse that the state had been warned to fix and refused to.
The DOT first withheld $40 million from California for failing to enforce federal English Language Proficiency standards for commercial drivers.
When Newsom blew past the January 2026 deadline to revoke the illegally issued licenses, Duffy pulled another $158 million.
California's response to all of this was to argue, in court filings, that Florida "does not even know how California's commercial driver's license program works."
That's the attitude that got three people killed.
The Supreme Court Shuts Florida Out
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier did what any serious law enforcement official would do.
He went to the only court in America with jurisdiction over disputes between states – the U.S. Supreme Court – and asked for the right to sue California and Washington for licensing Singh and putting him on American roads.
SCOTUS refused Tuesday in a brief, unexplained dismissal: "The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied."
No reasoning.
No acknowledgement of the three people who died.
Nothing.
Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito had the integrity to dissent.
"This Court declines to even hear Florida's claims, even though it has nowhere else to bring them," Thomas wrote.
He was right.
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The Constitution explicitly grants the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over disputes between states.
Congress reinforced that mandate.
And SCOTUS still wouldn't touch it – leaving Florida, and every other state victimized by California's reckless policies, with nowhere to turn.
Newsom Gets the Message: Keep Doing It
Uthmeier's spokesperson put it plainly after the ruling: the Supreme Court just told Floridians there is no legal avenue to hold California accountable for "putting dangerous, illegal alien truck drivers on our roads."
Think about what that means.
California can issue commercial licenses to illegal aliens who fail English tests and have no legal right to be in this country – and when those drivers kill Americans in other states, those states cannot sue.
Washington State's attorney general issued a statement saying the matter had been "appropriately resolved."
Appropriately resolved.
Three Americans are in the ground because of a policy Gavin Newsom defends as a political badge of honor – and the left calls that "appropriate."
The Trump administration did what it could through executive power.
Rubio froze visas for foreign-born truck drivers after the crash.
Duffy pulled nearly $200 million in federal funding from California across two separate penalties.
But none of that brings back Herby Dufresne, Rodrigue Dor, or Faniola Joseph.
And thanks to six Supreme Court justices who didn't think the question was even worth answering, California knows it can keep doing this with no legal accountability to the states that pay the price.
Sources:
- Liv Caputo, "SCOTUS rejects Florida's undocumented truck driver suit against California, Washington," Florida Phoenix, May 26, 2026.
- "ICE Arrests Illegal Alien Involved in Fatal 18-Wheeler Crash Caused by Illegal Alien's Reckless Driving," Department of Homeland Security, August 2025.
- "NEWSOM CAUGHT REDHANDED: Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Exposes California Illegally Issued 17,000 Commercial Driver's Licenses, Gets Them Canceled," U.S. Department of Transportation, 2025.
- Jasmine Baehr, "Duffy says 'time's up' for Newsom as feds withhold $160M over illegal trucking licenses," Fox News, January 7, 2026.
- "USDOT follows through on threat to yank $158 million from California for failure to revoke 17,000 CDLs," CDL Life, January 2026.
