Florida is ramping up truck inspections along its border following a fatal highway crash involving a tractor-trailer driver who was in the country illegally, officials said.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Agriculture Commissioner announced the move at a news conference Monday.
Under the policy, officers will be at Florida’s agricultural inspection stations to stop anyone in the country illegally who may be operating large trucks with out-of-state driver’s licenses.
There are currently 23 agricultural inspection stations on 19 major highways in Florida, with another on the way.
Simpson said the state is also adding pull-over lanes along the northern border and over the next few months will be installing X-ray machines to search trucks as they pull through interdiction stations.
The new policies are in response to an Aug. 12 crash in which a driver who authorities said was in the country illegally was allegedly making an illegal U-turn on the Florida’s Turnpike when a minivan slammed into his tractor-trailer.
The truck was attempting the maneuver in a turn-around area marked for “official use only,” when it crossed in front on a Chrysler Town & Country minivan. NBC6’s Sophia Hernandez reports.
Three people who were in the minivan and were from South Florida were killed in the crash.
The driver, 28-year-old Harjinger Singh, was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter.
Officials said that an investigation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed that Singh had been living in the U.S. illegally since 2018, after he crossed the border from Mexico.
The Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said Singh got a commercial driver’s license in California in 2024. He was also given a commercial driver’s license by Washington in 2023, Uthmeier said.
Singh was arrested in California and was brought back to Florida. He appeared in court over the weekend where he was ordered held without bond.
Harjinger Singh, 28, was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter
Uthmeier said on Sunday night, a person who was in the country illegally was stopped while driving a commercial vehicle in Bay County.
The driver, who got his license in New Jersey, was arrested and under an ICE hold, Uthmeier said.
“It just shows that this is going on across the state, so checkpoints like this are going to be a great way to stop it,” Uthmeier said.
Uthmeier said he’s also urging the federal government to revoke commercial driver’s license program authority and strip federal funding from California and Washington.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
