A semi-truck driver, who is an immigrant, was arrested and charged with five counts of manslaughter after allegedly falling asleep at the wheel and crashing into stopped traffic on a Texas highway this past Sunday.
Authorities report that 27-year-old Alexis Osmani Gonzalez Copanioni was driving on I-20 near Wills Point, which is located just east of Dallas.
Initially, his truck struck a pickup truck that had five occupants, resulting in four fatalities and one person airlifted to a hospital in critical condition. The wreckage caused several other vehicles to be involved, and one semi-truck jackknifed, which led to a fifth death from another vehicle caught in the chaos.
Gonzalez Copanioni was booked at 1:22 a.m. on Sunday at the Kaufman County Jail, facing five counts of manslaughter and one charge related to using a deadly weapon, with his bond set at $1.5 million.
According to reports, Gonzalez Copanioni, a Cuban national, does not speak English.
This incident follows another significant crash in March near Austin on I-35, where five individuals, including two children, lost their lives.
In that event, Solomun Weldekir Araya, originally from Eritrea, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of deadly conduct. He reportedly speaks Tigrinya, the primary language used in Eritrea and parts of Ethiopia.
These accidents seem to reflect a troubling trend in the U.S., linked to an increase in road fatalities involving undertrained, foreign-born truck drivers. Reports indicate that hiring practices are increasingly favoring immigrants over American drivers.
In June, officials in Florida accused employees from two state motor vehicle departments of unlawfully issuing commercial truck driver licenses to undocumented individuals. It was claimed that hundreds of these licenses were sold to unqualified drivers.
