The Supreme Court declined this week to hear Florida's lawsuit against California and Washington over commercial driver's licenses issued to illegal immigrants, a case rooted in a fatal 2025 crash that killed three people on the Florida Turnpike. Only two justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented.
Thomas did not mince words. In a written dissent, the longest-serving justice argued the Court had no legal authority to turn the case away and accused his colleagues of substituting their own "policy judgments" for the plain text of the Constitution and federal statute.
The dispute centers on Harjinder Singh, an Indian national who crossed the Mexican border illegally and later obtained a commercial driver's license from one of the defendant states. On Aug. 12, 2025, Singh made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike while operating a tractor-trailer. Three people died. After the crash, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration tested Singh's English proficiency and found he could not correctly answer most verbal questions. He identified just one out of four highway signs, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
Thomas, in his dissent, put it bluntly:
"An illegal alien who cannot read English road signs cannot drive an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer."
Florida filed its lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court under the doctrine of original jurisdiction, the constitutional provision that gives the Court first and sole authority over disputes between states. Thomas's dissent hinged on that point. He wrote that Article III establishes the Supreme Court "shall have original Jurisdiction" in cases where a state is a party, and that Congress made that jurisdiction "exclusive" for controversies between two or more states.
"If this Court does not exercise jurisdiction over a controversy between two States, then the complaining State has no [judicial] forum in which to seek relief."
In other words, by declining the case, the majority left Florida with no courtroom at all. Thomas quoted an earlier precedent to reinforce his argument: "We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given."
He went further, accusing the Court of adopting "a discretionary approach to its exclusive original [jurisdiction] based on 'policy judgments that are in conflict with the policy choices that Congress made in the statutory text.'" The majority issued no opinion explaining its reasoning, Breitbart reported that the Court rejected the lawsuit without comment.
That silence makes the decision harder to evaluate on the merits. But it also makes Thomas's objection sharper: the Court did not explain why it refused to act, even as three people are dead and the underlying policy dispute remains unresolved.
The facts of the Aug. 12, 2025 crash are grim. Singh, who had entered the country illegally, was behind the wheel of a fully loaded tractor-trailer on the Florida Turnpike when he executed an illegal U-turn. Three people lost their lives. Law enforcement soon discovered that Singh likely could not read the road signs, a finding later confirmed by the federal safety administration's own testing.
Thomas noted in his dissent that "crashes like Singh's are disturbingly common." The implication was clear: states that hand commercial licenses to individuals who cannot demonstrate basic English literacy are exporting danger across state lines.
Florida's lawsuit targeted California and Washington specifically, the two states whose licensing policies allegedly enabled Singh to get behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle in the first place. The longest-serving justice on the bench, Thomas made the constitutional case for why the Court had an obligation, not merely an option, to hear the dispute.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier responded to the decision with his own sharp criticism, stating that "California's and Washington's decisions to endanger their own citizens is reprehensible."
The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case comes against a backdrop of executive action. In September 2025, roughly a month after the fatal crash, the Trump administration moved to tighten eligibility requirements for commercial driver's licenses. By February 2026, the administration had introduced new regulations aimed at preventing unqualified foreign nationals from operating commercial vehicles on American roads.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks weighed in on the broader issue in a February 27 post on X, writing: "American truck drivers are being ripped off by shady carriers hiring illegal immigrants to drive down wages."
Banks's complaint points to a dimension of the problem that extends beyond safety. Legal American truckers compete against drivers who entered the country illegally, obtained licenses in permissive states, and may accept lower wages, undercutting the livelihoods of citizens who followed the rules. The Supreme Court has drawn conservative criticism before for decisions that seem to sidestep the practical consequences of inaction.
Several questions remain open. The Court did not say which state, California or Washington, issued Singh's commercial license. It did not address how Singh passed the standard CDL examination if he could not read road signs or answer basic verbal questions in English. And it offered no explanation for why it declined to exercise the jurisdiction Thomas says the Constitution requires.
Singh's post-crash legal status is also unclear. Whether he was arrested, charged, or prosecuted for the crash that killed three people is not addressed in the Court's record or the available reporting.
The majority's silence is itself a kind of statement. When the Court declines a case without comment, it avoids creating precedent, but it also avoids accountability. Thomas's dissent forces the question into the open: if a state cannot sue another state in the one court constitutionally empowered to hear the dispute, where exactly is it supposed to go?
The answer, as Thomas made plain, is nowhere. That is the point.
This is not the first time the current Court has fractured along lines that frustrated conservatives. Internal divisions have surfaced repeatedly this term, from a landmark ruling on Louisiana's congressional map to disagreements over executive power and statutory interpretation. The Thomas-Alito dissent here fits a pattern: two originalists insisting the text means what it says, while a majority opts for institutional restraint that looks, to critics, like institutional evasion.
Three people are dead because a man who could not read a highway sign was given a license to drive an 80,000-pound truck. The states that issued that license face no judicial consequence. The Court that could have heard the case chose not to, and declined to say why.
The Trump administration's regulatory changes may prevent future tragedies. But regulation is not adjudication. Florida brought a constitutional claim between sovereign states, and the Constitution's own text appears to demand the Court hear it. Thomas's dissent is a reminder that the separation of powers only works when each branch does its job.
The internal dynamics of this Court will continue to generate headlines. But for the families of the three people killed on the Florida Turnpike last August, the dynamics that matter are simpler: a man who should never have been behind the wheel was, and no court will hold anyone accountable for putting him there.
When the law says "shall" and the Court reads "may," the people who pay the price aren't wearing robes.