The White House on Thursday said an "illegal alien" driver's crash that killed four on State Route 67 in Jay County, Indiana, was an "abhorrent example of the border crisis" as the Department of Transportation investigates the carrier "on the ground."
"On February 3, criminal illegal alien Bekzhan Beishekeev of Kyrgyzstan allegedly swerved and drove his eighteen-wheeler head-on into a van killing four innocent Americans: 50-year-old Henry Eicher, 25-year-old Menno Eicher, 19-year-old Paul Eicher and 23-year-old Simon Girod," Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote on Twitter.
ICE said Beishekeev "entered the U.S. using the Biden admin's disastrous CBP One App and was issued his CDL by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's Department of Transportation."
The U.S. DOT had previously sparred with Shapiro, accusing his state of licensing a "wanted terrorist" back in November.
[Related: Homeland Security explains how 'illegal aliens' get CDLs in the U.S.]
Pennsylvania, at that time, shot back that it was the Department of Homeland Security (which includes ICE), that had approved that driver's CDL application.
Following Beishekeev's crash, Indiana, a state that's partnered with ICE through the 287(g) program, handed the driver to ICE in Fort Wayne, "pending immigration proceedings," ICE wrote. "This tragedy and loss of American lives could have been prevented had PA not issued a CDL to an illegal alien."
DHS and U.S. DOT have worked closely together on pushing non-citizens out of the trucking industry.
DOT recently vowed to "go after" carriers that hire illegal aliens.
DOT Secretary Sean Duffy wasted no time after the Tuesday crash, posting on Twitter that "FMCSA is on-site investigating the carrier who put this unfit and unvetted truck driver behind the wheel of a semi resulting in the deaths of four Amish men in Indiana.
"There MUST be accountability for the community of Bryant, Indiana who are devastated by the loss of their loved ones."
News of the crash made it all the way to the White House Press Briefing room, where President Donald Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, pointed towards the immigration policies of the previous administration.
"Four Americans were tragically killed and lost their lives this week, yet again, from an illegal alien -- an individual who was paroled into the country by the Biden administration, using the CBP One app," she said. "That's not how immigration in this country should work."
Beishekeev's CDL, in images released by ICE, shows it was issued in June of 2025, after Trump had mandated English language proficiency for all CDL drivers and called for a nationwide "audit" of non-domiciled CDL issuance. 
Bekzhan Beishekeev and his Pennsylvania non-domiciled CDL. ICE
The White House has frequently called out blue states for licensing "unvetted" non-citizen drivers, but states mostly outsource the vetting process of CDL applicants to DHS. The department has, in recent months, made moves to make work authorization more expensive and terms more restrictive.
During the Biden administration, the Customs and Border Protection's CBP One app helped newcomers to the U.S. in applying for the I-94 form, which acts as proof of legal presence.
The Trump administration has since changed the app, canceled immigration appointments set by the app, and focused it on facilitating self-deportations. The administration has stripped some applicants of legal status and told them to leave the country "immediately," according to Homeland Security communications reported by CBS.
[Related: Will insurers drop carriers with non-English-speaking, non-citizen drivers?]
DOT in September put forth an emergency federal rulemaking looking to all but end non-domiciled CDL issuance, but that got blocked by a court in November.
Since then, DOT has taken a state-by-state approach, mostly ordering blue states to pause issuance of CDLs to non-citizens pending program review and corrections made. Pennsylvania is one of the states targeted.
