You’d think that letting someone with questionable immigration status and potential terrorist ties hop behind the wheel of a massive 18-wheeler in the middle of the country would trigger at least a few alarms. But no, not in Josh Shapiro’s Pennsylvania. Here, apparently, the process is so “thorough” that a man like Akhror Bozorov — an illegal immigrant trucker with a commercial driver’s license courtesy of PennDOT — managed to breeze through all the red tape and hit the road like it was just another Monday.
🚨 Shapiro Issued CDL to Known Terrorist 🚨
You can’t make this stuff up.
An illegal immigrant who is a WANTED TERRORIST from Uzbekistan was driving an 18 wheeler with a CDL that he received under Governor Josh Shapiro’s watch. The terrorist was wanted for recruiting extremists… pic.twitter.com/C8173QXfvY
— PA GOP (@PAGOP) November 18, 2025
What’s even more infuriating? Lawmakers saw this coming and warned Harrisburg. Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee Chairman Jarrett Coleman had the receipts — literally. Days before Bozorov’s arrest in Kansas, Coleman sent a pointed letter to PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll asking how, exactly, people who aren’t even supposed to be in the country are walking out of DMV offices with commercial licenses. That’s not a paperwork error — that’s a public safety failure of the highest order.
And when Coleman asked for accountability? Crickets. Or rather, the slow, carefully crafted bureaucratic shuffle of “we received your letter and are in the process of responding.” Because why actually answer questions when you can deflect responsibility or — better yet — blame someone else? In this case, the Shapiro team decided to pull the ol’ classic: Blame Trump! Or, more creatively, direct their finger toward DHS and Secretary Kristi Noem (wait… wasn’t she just a governor last we checked?). It’s as if the state has no role in checking and verifying who’s being granted licenses that allow them to operate multi-ton vehicles on our highways.
This is who @JoshShapiroPA protects and gives commercial driver’s licenses to. An international fugitive wanted for terrorism. https://t.co/2rcsTNK13d
— LetsGoBFLO (@HistorianUSA1) November 17, 2025
Let’s be clear — CDL licenses aren’t lollipops. These are credentials for operating massive, dangerous machines. And when they’re handed out like Halloween candy to people who aren’t even in the country legally, much less properly vetted, we’re way beyond policy disagreements. We’re talking about national security breaches, plain and simple.
Even worse, this isn’t an isolated case. Reports from an October bust in Oklahoma show over 80 non-citizen truckers, a dozen of whom reportedly got their licenses issued right from good old Harrisburg. That’s not a glitch in the system — that is the system. And it’s broken.
Coleman, along with Republican senators Doug Mastriano, Kristin Phillips-Hill, and Dawn Keefer, is right to demand answers. He asked if PennDOT was using the SAVE system to verify immigration status. PennDOT says they do. So… was Bozorov magically “legal” on paper? Or did someone rubber-stamp documents without actually doing their job?
Meanwhile, Carroll — the PennDOT Secretary, who just so happens to hail from Biden’s old stomping grounds — assures us he has the “greatest level of faith” in his team. Well, that’s lovely. But faith doesn’t get you very far when the facts show people with illegal status and possible terrorist ties holding a Pennsylvania-issued CDL with a REAL ID stamp. You can have all the faith in the world — the rest of us prefer accountability.
State GOP Chair Greg Rothman nailed it: “This is not just a policy failure. It’s a national security breach.” And he’s right. We’re not talking about someone using a fake address to sneak into a public school district. We’re talking about someone with enough red flags to wallpaper the Capitol being legally certified to operate a truck that could do catastrophic damage in the wrong hands.
But instead of a straight answer from Shapiro or a plan to fix the gaping holes in the system, we get PR spin, finger-pointing, and silence. And let’s not forget — this is the same administration that boasts about its “data-driven” governance. Except, apparently, when the data makes them look bad. Then it’s deflection, delay, and disaster.
It shouldn’t take a national scandal and federal arrests to get the Shapiro administration to pay attention. But here we are — again. And unless someone’s finally willing to take responsibility and clean house, we’ll be here next month too, with a new name, a new license, and the same infuriating silence from Harrisburg.
