Semi-Truck Driver Arrested in Fatal Avon Crash is Illegal Immigrant
AVON, Ind. — A semi-truck driver involved in a fatal crash from earlier this week in Hendricks County is reportedly in the U.S. illegally.
The crash occurred along U.S. 36 around noon on Wednesday. Witnesses told police that the semi ran a red light at an intersection and slammed into a white pickup truck.
The man in the pickup was killed in the collision. He’s been identified as 64-year-old Terry Schultz of Carmel.
Multiple law enforcement sources have confirmed that the driver of the Freightliner semi-truck, 24-year-old Sukhdeep Singh, was first taken into custody by Indiana State Police before being handed over to federal immigration enforcement.
“This tragedy comes less than two weeks after another illegal alien driving a semi-truck killed four innocent people in Indiana,” said the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday. “It is incredibly dangerous for illegal aliens, who often don’t know our traffic laws or even English, to be operating semi-trucks on America’s roads.”
Singh is now in ICE custody. He’s from India and suspected of being in the U.S. illegally since 2018. He was a minor at the time that he was caught at the border and then released.
Federal law enforcement also said Singh received his commercial driver’s license in May 2025.
U.S. Senator Jim Banks (R-Indiana) joined WIBC’s “The Hammer and Nigel Show” on Thursday, saying this is another example of a “tragic” incident that’s preventable.
“It truly makes me sick,” Sen. Banks said. “The more we talk about it, the more I hear from truckers and legitimate trucking companies who tell me that there are more of these illegals on the road than any of us have any idea.”
With Indiana being the “Crossroads of America,” there are thousands of truck drivers who drive on the state’s highways every day. Sen. Banks said a lot of them are illegal immigrants who are getting CDLs from “blue state governors” like those in California, New York, and Pennsylvania.
“This was a guy with an illegal driver’s license who was able to get a CDL through the state of Indiana because of loopholes in our own state,” said Sen. Banks.
The Indiana Senator also said there are hundreds of fake trucking schools operating in Indiana, where illegal immigrants will go and get an illegitimate certificate without going through actual truck driving courses. He also mentioned the numerous “chamellion carrier” companies.
“We call them chamellion carriers because they get shut down for violating the law and then overnight they pop back up under a different number and then they go out and hire illegals,” Banks told “The Hammer and Nigel Show.”
In response to all of that, Sen. Banks has proposed a trucking tipline. He wants to collect information from people in the trucking industry who are suspicious about illegal immigrants operating big rigs on the road. That information would be handed over to the Department of Transportation Inspector General for further investigation.
“These illegals are stealing jobs, they can’t speak English, they can’t read our traffic signs, they’re dangerous, and they’re killing Hoosiers,” said Banks.
The U.S. Department of Transportation recently announced the closure of over 550 commercial driving schools due to safety issues, following fatal crashes in Indiana and across the country. The Trump Administration is also enforcing English proficiency standards and threatening to withhold federal funding from states with deficient commercial driver’s license programs.
