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FLORIDA - Three Haitian immigrants were killed in a Florida highway crash on August 12th after their minivan collided with a tractor-trailer allegedly driven by an Indian immigrant who made an illegal U-turn.
The victims, identified as Herby Dufresne, 30, Faniola Joseph, 27, and Rodrigue Dor, 53, were traveling in their minivan when it struck the side of the 18-wheeler operated by Harjinder Singh, 28.
Video footage from Singh’s truck shows the minivan wedging partially under the trailer after the alleged U-turn.
Singh was unharmed.
Dufresne arrived in Miami from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in December 2023 under a two-year work permit sponsored through a federal program.
Details regarding Joseph and Dor’s immigration status have not been publicly disclosed, though they previously lived in Florida.
The three were traveling to Indiana, where Dor had recently moved after being unable to secure work in Miami.
Singh came to the United States in 2018 and allegedly failed English proficiency tests administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration after the crash, correctly reading only one of four signs.
Following a near deportation in 2018, Singh was granted a work permit in 2021.
He later obtained commercial driver’s licenses in Washington in 2023 and California in 2024.
CDL exams in California are only administered in English, while Washington allows testing in multiple languages including Spanish, Russian, and Serbian-Croatian.
Authorities continue to investigate the crash.
The Department of Homeland Security has not provided additional comment regarding Singh’s immigration status or work authorization.