Officials have confirmed that the three individuals who lost their lives in a crash caused by an Indian immigrant truck driver earlier this month were Haitian immigrants.
The driver, Harvey Dufrein, 30, along with passengers Faniola Joseph, 27, and Rodriguet Doh, 53, were traveling in minivans when Haljinder Singh, the truck driver, made an illegal U-turn and collided with them on the highway on August 12th, according to reports.
Dufrein arrived in Miami from Port-Au-Prince last December and had received a two-year work permit through a financial sponsorship program that began under the Biden administration, as shared by a friend of his.
The Miami Herald noted that details regarding Joseph and Doh’s immigration status or their arrival in the U.S. were not available, except that they had previously lived in Florida.
The Department of Homeland Security has not yet responded to inquiries regarding the incident.
At the time of the accident, the three were headed to Indiana, as Dufrein had decided to move there after struggling to find employment in Miami.
Footage captured from Singh’s truck showed him executing a wide U-turn on the Florida Turnpike. The video reveals him hardly reacting to the severe collision.
Singh, who came to the U.S. from India in 2018, failed an English proficiency test administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Bureau shortly after the incident on April 12.
After facing near deportation in 2018, Singh was granted a work permit in 2021 under the Biden administration.
The Department of Transportation indicated that Singh only correctly answered one out of the four indicators on the test.
Interestingly, records show he received his commercial driver’s license in California in 2024 and in Washington in 2023. It’s worth noting that CDL tests in California are conducted solely in English, whereas Washington offers them in multiple languages, including Spanish and Russian.
