Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Rajinder Kumar into custody on April 22 after Oregon officials released him from jail on April 2, the Department of Homeland Security said. Kumar is now being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma as deportation proceedings continue.
The case has become a flashpoint because DHS says Kumar, who entered the United States illegally near Lukeville, Arizona, in November 2022, was later released into the country by the Biden administration, granted work authorization in 2023 and given a commercial driver's license in California. Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said, “This illegal alien was issued a CDL by Gavin Newsom’s California,” and added that “Instead of cooperating with ICE law enforcement, Oregon sanctuary politicians RELEASED him from jail back into American communities,” after agents had lodged an immigration detainer.
Kumar has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment after DHS said he allegedly jackknifed his semi-truck and trailer on U.S. Highway 20 in Deschutes County on Nov. 24, blocking both lanes of the road. A Subaru Outback collided with the truck and killed William Micah Carter and Jennifer Lynn Lower, who had been married for 16 days.
The timing matters because the arrests, the jail release and the fatal crash now sit in the middle of a fight over sanctuary policies and federal immigration enforcement. Oregon officials declined to cooperate with ICE, according to DHS, and the agency is using the case to argue that local decisions can have deadly consequences when people it wants held are returned to the community. Kumar remains in custody in Tacoma while the criminal case and deportation process move ahead.
