American deaths at the hands of non-English-speaking drivers mount
by Kelly Sadler · The Washington TimesOPINION:
Jing Dong, a non-English-speaking naturalized citizen from China, was charged over the weekend with two counts of involuntary manslaughter after slamming the charter bus he was driving into an SUV on Interstate 95 in Stafford County, Virginia.
A teenage girl, her brother and their parents were killed in the crash after their vehicle caught fire. A woman who was in the SUV immediately in front of the bus also died.
Mr. Dong, a driver based in Staten Island, New York, obtained his commercial license in 2024 despite not being able to read, write or speak English.
“Unacceptable. This is exactly why we are holding states accountable, enforcing the rules of the road, and cracking down on drivers who can’t speak English,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote Saturday on X. “If you can’t be properly trained, read our road signs, or communicate with law enforcement, you have no business driving a bus.”
After a series of highly publicized crashes caused by non-English-speaking illegals, the Trump administration has made it a priority to remove undocumented and unqualified foreign drivers from U.S. roads.
The administration has enacted a rule barring some immigrants from obtaining or renewing commercial driver’s licenses, issued guidelines requiring stricter enforcement of English-language proficiency requirements, threatened noncompliant states by revoking federal funding, conducted state audits, and deployed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at weigh stations across the country to enforce immigration laws within the trucking industry.
After this crackdown, New York has halted the issuance of new CDLs to noncitizens. However, that hasn’t solved the problem of the CDLs it has already issued.
In 2019, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law dangerous “Green Light” legislation, which allowed criminal illegal immigrants to be issued CDLs, in some cases with their licenses labeled “No Name Given.”
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A federal audit conducted by the Department of Transportation late last year found that 53% of New York’s nondomiciled CDLs were unlawfully granted, often lacking verification of a visa or work authorization. The department flagged roughly 33,000 noncompliant licenses and demanded that New York revoke them, but the state refused.
As a result, the Trump administration withheld about $73.5 million of New York’s federal highway funding.
Even after the crash Friday, New York is in the process of suing the Trump administration for withholding the federal funds, arguing the cuts are illegal and politically motivated.
Foreign-born drivers make up 15% of all CDL holders, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Industry insiders say that number has dramatically increased over the past two decades, depressing the wages of veteran American drivers and discouraging others from entering the profession.
If the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict CDLs to English-only-speaking drivers are successful, then as many as 200,000 foreign drivers could be eliminated from the road, according to the Department of Transportation.
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Some states are aligning with the Trump administration’s efforts. After federal warnings, California, Texas and Missouri immediately suspended or altered their issuance of CDLs to noncitizens. In April, Indiana enacted a law requiring CDL drivers to demonstrate English proficiency and allowing employers to be fined up to $50,000 for violations. This crackdown has already led to the revocation of commercial licenses for nearly 1,800 drivers in the state.
After a high-profile, fatal 2025 Turnpike crash, Florida has taken aggressive legal and administrative actions against out-of-state CDLs, which included suing California and Washington for violating federal highway safety laws by issuing CDLs to illegal aliens. That crash included a tractor-trailer driven by an illegal immigrant Indian national who made an illegal U-turn that resulted in three fatalities.
Still, more can be done. In his State of the Union address this year, President Trump urged Congress to pass the Dalilah Law. The legislation was named after Dalilah Coleman, a 5-year-old girl who experienced a broken femur and skull fractures, as well as a diplegic cerebral palsy diagnosis, after she was involved in a multicar pileup caused by an illegal alien from India driving a truck in the sanctuary state of California, where he had been issued a CDL.
“Dalilah Coleman was only 5 years old in June 2024 when an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer plowed into her stopped car at 60 miles an hour or more,” said Mr. Trump, referring to the six-vehicle crash in which Dalilah was pinned in the back seat.
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The Dalilah Law requires states to limit CDLs to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and certain temporary work visa holders, tying compliance to federal Department of Transportation funding; mandates that all CDL tests be administered strictly in English; and requires states to revoke CDLs previously issued to undocumented immigrants.
Seems pretty commonsense.
The legislation passed out of committee and is sitting on the House floor, where it will likely linger until Republicans can get their act together and pass a few of these winning 80-20 domestic issues.
In the meantime, like the president is doing on so many issues, the executive branch will fight the good fight alone.
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• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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