Three Fatal Crashes Tied to Illegal Aliens Driving Commercially Licensed Vehicles Fuel Federal-State Fight Over DMV Access

Since these cases began accumulating in early July, three separate fatal crashes involving drivers who allegedly had no legal immigration status have intensified a federal push to strip improperly issued commercial driver's licenses from people in the country illegally.

The Trooper Pahira Case

On July 1, Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr., 44, was conducting a routine safety inspection of an 18-wheeler on Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County when a second semi-truck struck him. According to ICE and Pennsylvania police, the second truck was driven by Michael Bon, 33, a Haitian national.

Bon flew into the United States in July 2024 through the Biden-era CHNV parole program, which admitted Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals into U.S. airports. He applied for Temporary Protected Status in October 2024 and was denied. The Trump administration revoked his remaining status in 2025 and notified him he had to leave. He did not leave.

Despite having no valid immigration status at any point after that denial, Bon obtained a commercial driver's license in Massachusetts. ICE released his mugshot and a photo of that CDL on Tuesday. DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that the crash was "100% preventable" and that "illegal aliens should not be driving trucks on America's highways."

Bon is charged with vehicular homicide and involuntary manslaughter. ICE has lodged a detainer against him. Pahira left behind his parents, a sister, a brother-in-law, and two nieces.

Calli Toler, 6, Pitt County, North Carolina

Two days later, on July 3, Jaime Santiago Corona, 33, an illegal alien, allegedly ran a stop sign in Pitt County and T-boned a vehicle carrying 35-year-old Kelli Toler and her two young children. Corona was driving with a revoked license at the time, according to the Pitt County Sheriff's Office.

Kelli and her four-year-old son Colton were hospitalized with serious injuries. Six-year-old Calli Toler was pronounced dead at the scene.

Corona is charged with misdemeanor death by vehicle, failure to stop for a stop sign, careless and reckless driving, and driving with a revoked license. He is being held on a $100,000 bond and is considered a flight risk. ICE has lodged a detainer against him as well.

The Uzbek Driver and the Language Problem

Also this month, Bekhzod Asrarov, 42, a national of Uzbekistan, was arrested after allegedly hitting and killing 21-year-old Tobby Forsythe. According to Breitbart News, Asrarov cannot speak English, and medical personnel at the scene had to use Google Translate to communicate with him.

Homan: Blue States Are Blocking the Checks

Border czar Tom Homan addressed all three categories of cases directly in a Fox News interview, describing an enforcement campaign that is running at full speed in cooperative states and hitting a wall in others.

"We've removed thousands of aliens with CDLs, we're working very closely with many states," Homan said. "We're working very well with red states. Blue states are still struggling."

The specific obstacle he named: ICE and CBP cannot access New York's DMV database to run immigration status checks on CDL holders. Homan said Attorney General Todd Blanche is filing lawsuits against sanctuary jurisdictions as cases arise, and called for continued litigation.

Homan also said ICE is now stationing agents at commercial truck weigh stations in cooperative states to intercept illegal alien truckers in transit. Over the last five days before his interview, he said ICE arrested more than 10,000 people, a record for the agency.

The Legitimate Counter-Argument

Critics of the federal approach argue that broad DMV sweeps could snag legal immigrants, DACA recipients, or people with complicated status who are lawfully permitted to work and drive commercially. They also point out that many crashes involving commercial vehicles are caused by U.S. citizens, and that singling out immigration status can obscure systemic failures in CDL testing and enforcement that apply across the board. Transportation safety advocates note that trucker fatigue, understaffed weigh stations, and weak post-crash drug testing protocols are industry-wide problems that no immigration policy alone will fix.

The specific factual question raised by the Bon case remains unaddressed by these arguments: how does someone who was formally notified to leave the country and had no valid immigration status obtain a CDL from a state government? That process failed, and the state involved, Massachusetts, has not publicly explained it.

Where This Stands

The enforcement dynamic as of July 8 is straightforward: DHS and the Department of Transportation, led by Secretary Sean Duffy, are revoking CDLs in states that share DMV data. States that refuse to share—Homan named New York specifically—are creating a functional blind spot the federal government is trying to close through litigation rather than cooperation.

No federal court has yet ruled on whether states are required to provide ICE with DMV access. That question, still unresolved, will determine how far the CDL revocation campaign can actually reach.