My Son Was Killed by an Illegal Immigrant. Now I’m Exposing the Chaos of the System That Failed Him.

This November will mark a full year since my son Billy and his sweet wife Jenny were killed in a devastating car crash.

It’s the kind of anniversary that no parent ever believes they’ll experience, the death of their child. In a different world, our family would be celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary.

But I will never be able to hold my son and see his dimples as he grins or hug my daughter-in-law close.

Billy will never realize his greatest hope – to be a father and have a family of his own. Jenny will never become the piano technician she dreamed of being. And I will never again get the chance to tell them I love them.

Because at just 25 and 24, respectively, Billy and Jenny were beginning their journey as a married couple when their lives were cut short when an 18-wheeler truck, driven by a man who entered this country illegally, jack-knifed across the road.

It sat there with neither hazard lights lit nor warning signs placed in the road, to alert oncoming traffic of the obstacle that blocked both carriageways in the darkness.

Although the driver stayed at the scene, he did not report the highway block.

It wasn’t until another driver encountered the truck about 10 to 15 minutes before Billy and Jenny did that 911 was called.

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Billy and Jenny died at the scene. There is no way that they could have avoided this accident. They couldn’t see it coming. It was instantaneous, which means that they didn’t suffer. There were no skid marks, which one of the officers explained, meant that there wasn’t even enough time for them to be afraid. These details are comforting, but hollow.

What we learned about what caused the deadly crash still makes my blood go cold. An 18-wheel tractor trailer driven by Rajinder Kumar had jack-knifed across all the lanes of the highway, blocking traffic in both directions. Despite it being pitch black at night, there were no warning lights, flares, cones or emergency signals – not even the truck’s hazard lights were on.

Kumar, it was later revealed in police reports, was an illegal immigrant who had a non-domiciled Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) in California and a work authorization. He did not follow proper protocol that night when he did not notify the authorities about the jack-knifing. He did not give any warning to oncoming traffic that his trailer was stretched across the entire road, despite having warning equipment. He did not call 911. We later found out that he did not speak English, something that is federally required to hold a CDL.

Kumar was arrested the night of the crash on two counts of criminally negligent homicide – a grand jury later raised the charges to two counts of manslaughter in the first degree – and three counts of reckless endangerment, to which he pled not guilty.

I’ve never considered myself a highly political person, but the issue of immigration has been blasted into my life as destructively and instantly as the 80,000-pound tractor trailer driven by Kumar that took the lives of my son and daughter-in-law.

I am a life-long Democrat, but my son’s unfair and entirely preventable death has me questioning everything I believe in. We are living with the untenable chaos of allowing millions of undocumented people in under President Biden.

Kumar entered the country illegally in 2022 in Lukeville, Arizona, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Biden Administration immediately released him and gave him a work permit. California Governor Gavin Newsom made the unilateral decision to give him a CDL, DHS records show.

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Aided by Oregon’s sanctuary state policies and bail policies, Kumar posted bail on April 2 and was granted release. Twenty days later, on April 22, he was arrested by ICE and taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.

Although Kumar returned to Deschutes County Jail this month, his deportation order to India still stands. He has hearings scheduled that could grant him bail and release once again, leaving him vulnerable to deportation before his criminal trial on January 19, 2027.

When Kumar returned to Oregon this month ahead of his October 23 bail hearing, I was given the opportunity by ICE to speak with him briefly in the parking lot before he entered the Deschutes County jail. I stood a respectful distance, about five to six feet away. I introduced myself to him and he made eye contact. When I told him that I was Billy’s mother, however, he looked down and didn’t look up again.

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With midterm elections and the anniversary of Billy and Jenny’s deaths coming up, I made the decision to testify before Congress earlier this year. I could not stand meekly by while the issue of immigration has slipped off the radar. Billy and Jenny deserved justice and I needed legislators to understand that this is a problem that needs to be addressed now.

I told the panel that I was ashamed of how my party was handling the issue of immigration and I stand by that. I can’t help feeling like they created a problem that they’re now refusing to address or take accountability for. Worse, they seem apathetic about the issue.

While I was giving my testimony, Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) fell asleep. I wanted to ask him if my grief bored him.

Nadler’s behavior that day embodies the passivity I have felt from so many of our elected officials, Democrats and even some Republicans, as other victims and I have called for an end to the dangers enabled by the lax attitudes towards immigration in this country. I’ve called and written letters to congressmen, but it’s been an uphill battle to get anybody to pay attention or even get a reply.

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