Push increased for Dalilah’s Law to get a floor vote

By Alan Wooten
The Center Square

More than four months later, federal legislation from a North Carolina congressman addressing nondomiciled commercial drivers remains stuck in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A trucking industry group tells Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., it’s time for a vote on the House floor.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have restricted issuance by states of nondomiciled CDLs. Todd Spender, president and CEO of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, wrote to Johnson last Wednesday urging permanent protection that can only be done through Congress.

“This legislation is essential to closing dangerous gaps in the issuance of nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses that continue to put lives at risk on our nation’s highways,” Spencer wrote. “OOIDA is the largest national trade association representing small-business truckers and professional drivers, and this legislation is necessary to help protect their safety and the safety of other highway users.”

Nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses, under the new rule, are limited to those with lawful immigration status and the employment-based nonimmigrant categories of H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visas. Others can come from U.S. territories or states with decertified CDL programs.

House Resolution 5688, known also as Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act as well as Dalilah’s Law, was authored and filed Oct. 3 by U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C. It taps into Ohio Republican Rep. Dave Taylor’s bill known as Connor’s Law.

English language proficiency is required for holders of commercial driver’s licenses, inclusive of road signs and ability to communicate with lawmen.

Other aspects include requirements for states to verify they are not issuing CDLs to people illegally in the country; stronger penalties up to and including withholding of federal funds; and a focus on ending “CDL mills.”

“Ensuring each truck driver is qualified and legally operating will protect the public from these tragic, yet preventable accidents,” said Rouzer, chairman of the panel’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. “I want to thank Chairman Graves, Secretary Duffy, and my colleagues for their support and swift action in advancing this critical legislation. I look forward to working to get this bill through the House and Senate to answer President Trump’s call to restore public trust on our roadways.”

Missouri Republican Rep. Sam Graves is chairman of the committee.

Forty-eight state trucking associations (all but California, Delaware), the American Trucking Associations, Truckload Carriers Association and National Tank Truck Carriers signed a statement in support.

The proposal’s namesake is Dalilah Coleman, in June 2024 a 5-year-old passenger in a vehicle struck by a semi-truck driven by a person illegally in America. The vehicle she was in was stopped, the truck driven by Partap Singh was traveling at 60 mph in California. Singh got the CDL in California.

Coleman’s injuries included a fractured skull, broken femur, and traumatic brain injury. She emerged from a three-week coma, and diagnosis of diplegic cerebral palsy and global development delay, to go with her family as a State of the Union guest of second-term Republican President Donald Trump this year.

People in the country illegally and driving big rigs has brought tragedy – and awareness – from coast to coast.

Prosecutors say on Aug. 12 that Harjinder Singh was driving an 18-wheeler and tried to U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through a point in the divided highway marked “official use only.” The speed limit at mile marker 171 is 70 mph. Three people in a van behind them, with a tractor-trailer suddenly blocking the lane, perished.

In Ontario, Calif., on Oct. 21, the California Highway Patrol says 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh of India was behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler on the 10 Freeway that didn’t brake starting a rear-end crash involving eight vehicles. Three people died.

In February, a quadruple fatal in Indiana was tied to Bekzhan Beishekeev of Kyrgyzstan failing to brake for a slowed semi-truck and swerving into the westbound traffic on a two-lane highway. His 18-wheeler crashed head-on into a 15-passenger van on State Road 67.

Homeland Security said Beishekeev came to America using the CBP One app offered by the Biden administration. Published reports say he entered through Nogales, Ariz., on Dec. 19, 2023, and was released via parole.

More recently, Spencer said a tragedy this month in Pennsylvania might have been averted. A truck driver with a nondomiciled CDL from Massachusetts and his immigration parole status terminated struck and killed Pennsylvania Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. on Interstate 81 while Pahira was inspecting a tractor-trailer on the shoulder of the road.

“Trooper Pahira’s death is a devastating reminder that our current CDL system lacks the safeguards needed to keep unqualified and unvetted drivers off the road,” Spencer wrote to Johnson. “Had this legislation been previously signed into law, the driver responsible for Trooper Pahira’s death would not have been eligible to receive a CDL in the first place.”

Jing Dong, driver of a bus involved in a quintuple fatal in Virginia on May 29, is an example of a U.S. citizen – he immigrated from China and naturalized during the Obama administration – who doesn’t speak English. Prosecutors say he was intoxicated and without a license at all.

Rouzer’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure passed the bill 35-26 on March 18. Its languished since.

“We respectfully ask,” Spencer wrote to Johnson, “that you bring Dalilah’s Law to the floor for a vote without further delay. The safety of America’s truckers, law enforcement officers and the motoring public should not be a partisan issue, and it should not wait any longer.”