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EXCLUSIVE: Pennsylvania lawmakers warned Harrisburg officials of a potential crisis on their hands before Monday’s arrest of an Uzbek illegal immigrant trucker in Kansas who held a PennDOT commercial driver’s license (CDL).
Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee chairman Jarrett Coleman shared a letter with Fox News Digital that he sent just days earlier to PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll asking for answers to how illegal immigrants were receiving CDL licenses despite stated rigorous identity checks.
Coleman, R-Allentown, said Monday’s incident was “deeply disturbing but not surprising” and another example of the Shapiro administration “prioritiz[ing] political optics over public safety.”
He said that Pennsylvanians deserve accountability in situations like this and that if the administration will not provide public answers, then there is a “much bigger problem on our hands.”
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Trucks move through a major construction zone on US-22/I-78 in Greenwich Township, Berks County, Pa. (Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)
“Public safety is not negotiable,” he said. “Ten days ago, I and several colleagues formally requested answers from PennDOT about what safeguards they have in place to prevent individuals who are in this country illegally, and in some cases have criminal records, from obtaining CDLs.”
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The letter had been prompted by reports that a dozen illegal immigrants netted in an October bust of about 80 noncitizen truckers in Oklahoma were issued their licenses by Harrisburg.
“Governor Shapiro is quick to jump in front of cameras and tout his leadership, but when it comes to answering basic questions about how his administration is protecting Pennsylvania drivers, we get silence,” Coleman said.
“This isn’t just bureaucratic delay. It’s stonewalling. And it’s dangerous.”
Coleman led the letter, which was cosigned by Sens. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg, Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-Dallastown, and Dawn Keefer, R-Dillsburg.
Pennsylvania State Sen. Jarrett Coleman’s official portrait. (PA State Senate/Office of Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-Allentown.)
It requested Carroll provide more than a dozen datapoints, including whether PennDOT has even reviewed the files of the CDL holders arrested by ICE since October, and whether those drivers were properly verified at the time of issuance.
Carroll was also asked whether PennDOT is using required federal “systematic alien verification for entitlements” to verify immigration status, and whether it was complying with a directive from USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy to halt all issuances of “non-domiciled CDLs.”
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Since the letter was sent, a federal judge rebuked Duffy and overturned his suspension of license issuance.
Coleman also asked Carroll about any internal audits, oversight mechanism, corrective action plan, or assessments of public safety risks from their current modus operandi.
A spokeswoman for Carroll confirmed PennDOT received Coleman’s letter and is in the process of responding.
She assured that whenever “non-citizen applicants apply for a CDL in Pennsylvania, PennDOT follows applicable federal and state processes, reviewing the necessary immigration and naturalization documents and confirming the non-citizen’s legal status in real-time using [DHS’] SAVE database before issuing a license — if the applicant clears the SAVE process, which confirms the applicant is residing in the U.S. under legal status, and successfully meets all other criteria, a license is issued.
“PennDOT completes these two checks to confirm legal status with the federal government every time it issues a license to a non-citizen,” the spokeswoman said.
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Carroll, a former state lawmaker from former President Joe Biden’s home county of Lackawanna, said he has the “greatest level of faith in our driver’s license and motor vehicle folks” when it comes to properly verifying “substantial documentation” required for REAL IDs and licenses.
Later Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Republican Party issued its own demand for Shapiro to speak out on the growing issue.
PAGOP Chairman Greg Rothman, a state senator from Cumberland County, called it “not just a policy failure [but] a national security breach right here in Pennsylvania.
“How in the world did someone with terrorist ties pass every check to get behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler in our state?”
Rothman said the Uzbek national, Akhror Bozorov, also obtained REAL ID verification from PennDOT.
“The people who signed off on this need to be found, fired, and Governor Shapiro must answer for this.”
In that regard, Shapiro’s office hit back at critics and suggested they instead question the Trump administration about the situation.
“If officials are concerned about this, they should redirect their attention to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who manages the federal database that is checked before any Pennsylvania licenses are issued to non-citizens,” said Rosie Lapowsky, a spokeswoman for Shapiro.
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PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll, right. (VALERIE MYERS/ERIE TIMES-NEWS / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
“The PAGOP is formally requesting that federal and state oversight authorities launch a full investigation into the decision-making process that allowed Bozorov to receive a CDL,” the PAGOP added in a statement.
Bozorov’s license—an image of which was obtained by Fox News Digital—listed a ZIP code corresponding to Philadelphia’s Somerton neighborhood, a suburban-style area in the city’s northeast once home to figures like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and, more recently, an increasing number of Russian and Arabic residents.
In response to Bozorov’s initial arrest, PennDOT spokeswoman Alexis Campbell told Fox News Digital that “when non-citizen applicants appear at a Driver License Center in Pennsylvania, PennDOT reviews immigration and naturalization documents, which are confirmed in real-time against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) website before issuing any driver’s license.”
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