There is an Indian saying that while just one person breaches the riverbank an entire village gets drowned. That is precisely what Harjinder Singh, an Indian origin truck driver in Florida, US, did on August 12.
Driving a commercial truck, he made an “illegal U-turn” that caused a minivan to crash into his truck, resulting in the death of three people. Immediately, the US government decided to stop issuing worker visas for all the commercial truck drivers and review all the 5.5 million visas issued globally for public safety.
Given an already hostile atmosphere prevailing across the United States against illegal immigrants created by the Trump administration, the government there seized the opportunity to exploit it politically.
Harjinder was allegedly an illegal immigrant having crossed over to the US in 2018 through an unlawful route. He had procured his driving licence from California, a state ruled by the Democrats. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is already embroiled in a direct confrontation with US President Donald Trump.
The Republicans used this opportunity to malign the Democrats as to how they have encouraged illegal immigration by issuing driving licences to illegal immigrants thus “endangering public safety”.
The accident drove an immediate reaction from no less a person than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announcing “pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers”. Rubio wrote on X: “effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers.”
In a highly politically surcharged atmosphere, the Republicans used this opportunity to target Governor Gavin Newsom of California for issuing commercial driving licence to Harjinder without verifying his immigration status and ability to speak or read English and the driving signs on the roads, which might have led to him taking an illegal U-turn on a Florida highway causing loss of three lives.
The California government rejected the charges saying that Harjinder Singh was issued the commercial driving licence in accordance with the California laws, which require the person to have lawful presence in the country at the time of the issuing of the licence. Trying to get even with the Trump administration, Governor Gavin’s office specifically mentioned that Harjinder Singh had entered the United States in 2018, “when Donald Trump was the President” in his first term.
The US Department of Homeland Security rejected the California government claims about Harjinder’s lawful presence in the country saying he was an illegal immigrant having entered the US illegally and despite his illegal immigrant status, the California government had issued a commercial driver’s licence to him thus endangering public safety.
As the truck crash suited the Republican narrative against illegal immigrants, the US administration immediately decided to review all 5.5 million visas issued globally, not just of truck drivers, to check various types of violations and criminal activities.
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That one single accident, which no doubt led to the death of three people, would trigger such a strong reaction targeting not only illegal truck drivers or illegal immigrants, but all the 5.5 million people holding valid US visas, reflects how the current US regime is trying to exploit any incident that suits its narrative.
While Harjinder’s one wrong/ illegal U-turn has created such a huge storm in the United States, it has once again brought into focus the road safety back in India. Harjinder obviously must have got some driving experience in India that enabled him to procure a commercial truck driver’s licence in the United States. What he forgot in the process was that he was now driving on the US roads strictly governed by rule of law and not the Indian roads, where it is not the traffic rules, but the “truck drivers” who rule the roads.
His act of negligence, in all likelihood out of ignorance, has now put at stake the future of thousands of others who will not be able to get a worker visa. It is not restricted to the Indian job seekers but all foreigners, particularly truck drivers.
What Harjinder did in the US, knowingly or unknowingly, is almost normal in India. Wrong and illegal U-turns in India are rarely penalised. Even driving on the wrong /opposite side is condoned in India. There is hardly any penalty for it, except for greasing the palms of the traffic cops on duty. And in case of accidents, even fatal ones, the erring drivers get away with these, as the legal process is so complex in India that conviction rates are abysmally low.
Accidental deaths caused by rash driving have been “made acceptable” in India. Leave aside punishing the driver with jail sentences, they do not even need to go off the road as their driving licences never get cancelled. And even if these get cancelled, they will still manage to drive as licences are rarely checked in India. Even when these are checked or asked for, not possessing them also has a solution, not unknown to the drivers.
In India, the conviction rates in such accidents, rather all sorts of accidents causing deaths, is negligible for multiple reasons like lack of evidence, or the witnesses turning hostile or the “out of court settlements” with the culprits buying a settlement with the victim’s family.
Harjinder Singh ended up as a “wrong man, at a wrong place, at a wrong time, in a wrong act”. At the same time, he mirrors the tragedy of Punjabi youth. He is reported to have lost both his parents. Then he somehow managed to arrange Rs 27 lakh that enabled him to take a “donkey route” to the US.
He was lucky to land in the US and go unnoticed for seven years. As the ill luck would have it, he took an “illegal U turn” that caused three deaths and he was “found out”. Not only will he now be deported, but he will also have to undergo a sentence for the deaths his illegal U turn caused. Interestingly, it was not the ICE agents who caught him, but his own “negligence” that landed him in trouble.
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