On August 12, an illegal alien from India killed three people in Florida. He wasn’t the “usual” criminal alien who raped or murdered. He was one of those illegals liberals salute for “working” whose “only” infraction was getting to the United States illegally. Lots of TikTok women on X will announce they have “no f-ing problem” with such “undocumenteds.”

Harjinder Singh killed those three people with a truck. He was driving a semi that made an illegal U-turn on a highway. Three people just happened to be in his way. (Although from India, Singh also failed the “xenophobic” regulations put in place two months ago by the Trump Administration requiring truckers to be literate in English).

How was Singh driving? Because California gave him a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). In keeping with the Golden State’s sanctuary policies, the legal status of driver license applicants is not asked.

Gavin Newsom shares responsibility for the blood of those dead people. He’ll try to deflect but the man could not have been driving a semi without a California CDL.

Sanctuary jurisdictions almost certainly will try to continue their policies when it comes to driving. They’ll also certainly insist that driver licensing is a “state right” and they will continue to do what they’re doing because “it promotes public safety.” How do we stop this insanity?

I have two solutions.

First, much of the business semis do involves interstate commerce. The Constitution’s interstate commerce clause has been stretched by liberals for decades to ground their policy choices. It was the justification, for example, to impose Obamacare mandates.

It’s time conservatives fought fire with fire. Let’s simply require that any truck crossing state lines must have a “Real ID” CDL. To obtain a “Real ID” license, one must prove legal status, i.e., that one is a citizen or lawfully admitted to the United States.

Our current two-tier system -- states issue “Real IDs” and their own non-compliant state licenses -- is the loophole by which sanctuary jurisdictions put illegals on the road. Some conservatives, citing “privacy” and “the cure is worse than the disease” arguments, are willing to go along with the status quo. They claim it would be “too intrusive” for the federal government to enforce.

That might be true of ordinary driver licenses, though I believe this could be addressed. But CDLs are a different reality.

First, while the categories do not wholly overlap, most vehicles for which a CDL are needed also need Operating Authority numbers from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Congress, exercising interstate commerce powers, can stipulate that the FMCSA cannot certify a vehicle eligible for a number unless the owner certifies that the vehicle will not be operated by any driver lacking a Real ID CDL.

Second, while ‘sanctuary” jurisdictions might try to ignore these rules (unless Congress threatens to withhold their highway money), many states require trucks to stop for inspection at weigh stations. Law-abiding states could yank non-Real ID CDLs and their drivers when being inspected. They could also notify the FMCSA of a vehicle being operated in this manner to decertify its authorization. If the vehicle is licensed by a non-sanctuary state (e.g., driver is hired to drive for a company and doesn’t own his truck), those states could also be incentivized to cancel registration if the vehicle is involved in loss of previously held FMCSA Operating Authority. The same rules could be applied to any truck pulled over a legitimate traffic stop.

Companies owning trucks will have plenty of economic incentives not to risk their vehicle losing operational rights at the hands of illegals.

A federal requirement would degrade the value of non-Real ID state-issued CDLs. They’d essentially only be useful for intrastate commerce. We do run the risk of contiguous sanctuary states (e.g., much of the Northeast or the Pacific coastline) ignoring the rule and honoring their neighboring states’ non-compliant CDLs, but that is just the latest iteration of the “state nullification” theory advanced by Democrats during the Civil War, a nefarious idea we thought buried in 1865.

In any event, interstate commerce is subject to federal oversight even among “wink-and-nod” sanctuary states, so any truck intercepted elsewhere having been identified in “sanctuary interstate commerce” could lose FMCSA authorization. It’s also why we should incentivize “purplish” states (e.g., Arizona, New Hampshire) that don’t give illegals licenses to give extra attention to trucks from sanctuary states entering their territory.

We don’t have to sacrifice Americans because “hardworking” illegals (who have no right to work) get drivers licenses from sanctuary states to operate 18-wheelers. The power for the federal government to stop this is there. Let’s use it.

Image: AT via Magic Studio