Illegal Migrant Truck Drivers Threaten American Lives
By John Kass
November 5th, 2025
See the old man with the kindly eyes? There’s nothing kindly about them. And there’s nothing kind about what’s waiting for you and your family out on the highways. Just listen:
On November 8, 1994 there was a light drizzle and fog on the Illinois expressways and up into Wisconsin. It was fall. Temperatures were in the 40s.
Now think of the Willis family packed into the family van, six kids and parents on the expressway near Milwaukee. The father, my friend Scott Willis, a Christian pastor from Mt. Greenwood, was driving. His wife Janet was in the seat next to him.
They had just voted Republican for their candidate for governor, Illinois Secretary of State, George Ryan. They liked Ryan.
“I was looking at the road and was alert,” Scott recalled. “Our little baby (Peter) was behind us. Our son Ben was behind us on the other side. I saw the object (a metal brace) I thought.
He thought it was one of those blocks that maybe came off a flatbed truck. The car in front of him swerved, and he knew he couldn’t miss hitting the object.
“I thought if I took it on the tire I might roll the car,” he said. “It was a split-second decision. When we hit the object, the rear gas tank exploded, taking the car out of control.”
He recalled that he was able to grip the wheel and take the car out of the slide. Flames were coming around the seat, it was a shock—a surprise.
“Like what is this?” he said. “It was just roaring flames coming up on both sides.”
Scott and Janet suffered serious burns but survived. Five of the six Willis children died instantly: Joe Willis, age 11; Sam Willis, age 9; Hank Willis, age 7 Elizabeth Willis, age 3 Peter Willis, 6 weeks old. Benjamin Willis, 13 (died the next day).
It turned out that the truck driver, Riccardo Guzman, paid bribes to Ryan’s office for his commercial driver’s license. The trailer hitch assembly was hanging from the truck. Other drivers beeped at him and tried to get his attention, but he was oblivious. He couldn’t speak English to pass a test for a commercial driver’s license. But he knew enough to pay a bribe to Ryan’s office to get his license.
Years before he was indicted, others in Ryan’s office knew bribes had been paid.
On the morning of the accident, the driver, Riccardo Guzman, ignored repeated warnings from other drivers that there was a large piece of metal that was going to fall off the back of his truck.
The Willis kids were burned alive, and the corruption in Illinois ran so deep that anyone daring to mention the Willis family were open to the shrews and screaming harpies that defend the corrupt. Among them were Republicans from the Illinois Combine–the bi-partisan gang of political insiders who’ve run the state into the ground.
I personally know this to be true. I lived through it. So did many of you who’ve been reading my columns through the years.
The political corruption overwhelmed those trying to shine a light on it, including “crusading” newspapers. All were infected. And the Ryan Republicans, part of the Illinois Combine, had no shame.
Illinois, the most politically corrupt state in the union, shamed itself again, when Ryan was convicted.
“It should be something of a medieval circus,” I wrote after his long-overdue conviction in 2007, writing for ‘the paper’ that would shame itself again and again.
“But he won’t be in a wooden cart, face exposed, to be pelted with rotten vegetables and the loud epithets of the mob. He’ll most likely be in the back of a van.
” …There’s no way around this. The shame belongs to all of us who live in Illinois.
Why write about this now, decades after the fact?
Because I really can’t let it go. I’m a father. Betty and I know Scott and Janet. They’ve come to our house for picnics and to watch the boys play baseball. We’ve had our kids on that same highway, in a van. The kids singing songs, my wife singing with them. I can’t let it go.
And there’s another reason:
It’s happening again, with thousands and thousands of illegals—protected by Sanctuary States like California and Illinois—obtaining commercial driver’s licenses with your wives and children out on the roads. They can’t read the road signs. And they’re diving big rigs. How did they get here? They got here over or through or under the border wall. The Biden Democrats let this happen. You know this.
But how do they get truck licenses when they can’t speak English? Common sense tells me they pay bribes, like Guzman did. And sanctuary states protecting leftist policies protect them.
For example, the Florida Turnpike Crash of August 2025 happened when Harjinder Singh, an illegal immigrant from India, was driving a semi-truck when he allegedly made an illegal U-turn on an “Official Use Only” access point of the Florida Turnpike. A minivan carrying three people collided with the jackknifed truck’s trailer, killing all three occupants.
Investigations revealed Singh had been issued a CDL by both California and Washington states despite reportedly failing English proficiency and road sign tests multiple times. He was arrested in California after fleeing Florida the day after the crash and is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide.
And there was the California Interstate 10 Crash (October 2025)
when Jashanpreet Singh, another undocumented immigrant from India, caused a fiery eight-vehicle pileup on Interstate 10 in San Bernardino County, California, killing three people. Authorities determined he was under the influence of drugs at the time and failed to apply the brakes before slamming into slow-moving traffic at high speed. He was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
And the Indiana Crash (October 2025): when an illegal alien from Serbia and Montenegro, Borko Stankovic, caused a multi-vehicle accident in Portage, Indiana, that killed Jeffrey Eberly.
Stankovic was driving a semi-truck with a suspended CDL that belonged to a family member.
How does it work?
Under current U.S. regulations, asylum applicants can apply for a work authorization document with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) five months after their asylum application is filed (rather than five months after it’s granted). There’s no filing fee for asylum applications—meaning there is literally no cost involved in applying.
This creates a huge incentive for inadmissible aliens to file fraudulent asylum applications to gain U.S. work authorization.
And while adjudicating the asylum application can take DHS or the Justice Department years to complete, the DHS prioritizes granting employment authorization applications, averaging mere months to complete such applications.
But they’re on the road right now, in that big truck coming up behind you. as you drive over to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. You might think of your families. You might also think of the politicians who want you silent.
And think of the Willis children.
-30-
(Copyright 2025 John Kass)
About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.
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Comments 37
Is there anything in this country that a Sanctuary State governor can’t harm? I’ve carried a Kansas A CDL with HazMat and Tanker for years. Had to renew in August. Essentially, I had to get a 98% on signs, 90% on HazMat, and 85% on the CDL itself. Passed, but studied for a month on and off to make sure I did so.
There needs to be a reckoning for these governors, starting with the fat dude, and then the guy with Vaseline in his hair.
Sadly,unlike Ryan, no one’s going to be held accountable. It’s going to take YEARS to clean up the mess Obama’s third term left us!
John thank you for painfully reminding us of this horrific tragedy perpetrated by the sleaze-bags we elected and sadly continue to elect. People get the government they vote for knowingly or unknowingly. Wish the legacy news would be outraged by what the sanctuary states have and are continuing to let happen on our roads and else where and demand justice for the victims and their families as they once did.
The mayhem needs to end.
When the accident on the Florida Turnpike occurred this past August, I immediately thought about the Willis family. Such a tragedy. I applaud Sean Duffy and Kristi Noem for addressing this and getting these people off our roads.
Thanks John. I remember this well.
Until the patronage army suffers in some manner, these clowns will continue to be elected. But by then it will certainly be too late to reverse course.
With any luck there will be consequences for Pritzker, Johnson and others involved in overwhelming our state and country.
Thank you John for your gruesome reminder 0f how corruption takes innocent lives.
It is important to add that as the current Democratic corruption lays the groundwork for many more innocent lives to be taken The same Dem lefties embraced old Georgie for abolishing the death penalty in Illinois for convicted murderers. They truly are the party of death, whether murdering unborn babies, sparing convicted murders from their just desserts, allowing illegal aliens into our country to rape and murder our citizens, putting illegal aliens behind the wheels of a multi-ton semi road weapon, or pushing “assisted” suicide.
Why does anyone have to Qualify to get a job?
Why does anyone have to Qualify by reading English?
Why does anyone have to Qualify to get a drivers license?
Why can’t anyone walk right in get a job and a license without any credentials?
Oh wait, they can!
What happened to Scott and Janet Willis and their children was horrific.
A tragedy remembered by many. God Bless them.
And they don’t have to pay a bribe anymore! Democrats hand licenses out like candy to illegals.
I am afraid for our life every time we have to drive the Borman, which is weekly in the summer months. Some truckers driving in the far left hand lanes. It has to be one of the worse roads in the country.
Your coverage of the Willis tragedy was your finest hour. You should have received a Pulitzer for it, if the Pultizer board wasn’t so corrupt.
On October 10, 1970 Illinois Secretary of State Powell was found dead in his hotel room, possessed overall of $800,000 in cash crammed in shoebox, cases and envelopes. I surmise an alert young druggist in Kankakee with acquisitive tastes took stock.
Brylcreem Boy and his ilk have taken the monetization national. Any trucking firm employing these obviously unfit professionals needs to be severely punished.
when Powell’s “secretary” found him dead, she called his lawyer. He found the money ,putting it in the trunk of his car. After leaving , he had second thoughts . There might be more evidence there,so he returned to search again. When he was leaving,he found his car had been towed. He knew that the money would be found at the pound,so he reported it. That’s the reason we ever found out about the money.
Ryan should have been publicly hung in Daley plaza.
Yianni,
Too bad we don’t have the guillotine with which to punish these criminals that kill unsuspecting drivers on our roads. At least once the punishment is meted out, they won’t be seeking parole, or crying for mercy! The finality of the punishment fits the crime. But that’s just me…
Any time I see an incompetent driver on the road, and heaven knows there are many, my thought immediately is,”where did you get your drivers license, McCook?” McCook is the facility, if you remember, that was behind the whole bribe scandal.
In June my wife was hit by a semi in a PIT type maneuver that sent her car spinning across three lanes of traffic to the opposite shoulder where I-80 and the Tri-State split. Even the cops said it was a miracle she wasn’t killed. The semi didn’t stop. Now we know why.
I hope she did not suffer any physical injuries, but I am sure she suffered some PTSD, I would .
Down here in Will County last week a truck ran over a 12 year old on his bicycle and killed him in Manhattan, Il. On the roads just south in Kankakee, it seems that every other week there are truck on auto killer accidents on a regular basis. The politicians blather about and wring their hands but nothing results from their pompous statements.
“Common sense tells me they pay bribes, like Guzman did.”
Not anymore. Democrats WANT illegal aliens to be able to get jobs without being able to speak English. They think the regulations requiring such to be racist and won’t enforce them.
Heck, these days it’s not at all impossible that the person approving the application is an illegal alien.
I, too, remember the tragic case involving the Willis family, and its aftermath. Also, I agree with the sentiment of many folks who have given opinions about this article and its relevance to politics today, 31 years later. Mr. Kass should be commended for his fine work in this column and many others over the years. A couple things could be added, however. First, it was reported that other truckers tried to warn Guzman on their CB radios that a part was about to fall off his truck, but since Guzman didn’t understand English he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Second, the truth was uncovered by Joe Power, who was probably the best plaintiff’s attorney in Chicago at that time. Mr. Power was relentless in uncovering what happened. He and his law firm should be given credit for their tenaciousness in getting to the bottom of how the incident happened. I don’t call it an accident because there was actual intent that led up to the horrific events that transpired that day. I can’t recall a more memorable, horrible automobile collision than the one suffered by the Willis family. George Ryan’s sentence was much too short!
The Fake Governor we have in Springfield is more concerned with protecting Illegal Aliens in the state than actual Illinois Legal citizens.
Unfortunately when mention of this tragedy now 31 years after the event, the over riding fact for many (at least outside of Illinois) is that George Ryan was a Republican and it was all about Republican corruption. So for the social justice warriors in the deep blue sanctuary states outside of Illinois – say California and NY – this tragedy just reinforces their foundational belief that Republicans are evil. And that’s the end of it.
Bruce- I don’t understand this obsession on Kass’s site with having to label every crime with a political party. That just leads to the feelgood delusion that “my political beliefs are morally superior to yours”, which is pretty much the theme in most of Kass’s writings.
Can’t we just condemn wrong as wrong, regardless of who we vote for?
Bob I agree. But I would only point out that in the “market place of ideas” John Kass has a brand or a product to sell. And that product is indeed very political. And he has enthusiastic customers purchasing that product. If you and I don’t like it there are many alternatives i.e. other brands and products such as that marketed by Eric Zorn for example.
Combine
Mamdani is a communist. They’d rather elect a sexual harasser or a crooked incumbent over the Muslim. So he wants to make the bus free. You know there’s no way he can do that. Chris Hedges described the Dem candidates and policies as vapid, issueless, celebrity driven. That’s what really turned me off to them during the Covid convention and the campaign from the basement.
Ryan was a Republican. The Republicans in Congress insider trade just like Pelosi does. Ted Cruz is a shameless bootlicker. Trump called his wife ugly and said his dad had a hand in the Kennedy assassination. This my team/your team bullshit is getting so old.
The fractures over Mamdani and the frauds on the left, and Israel with younger Republicans on the right, not to mention the bipartisan spare no expense for wars and fraud covid, but squat for our own people and crumbling infrastructure. Then there’s this ICE charade. They’re not going after employers. This is all theater. Both sides benefit too much from off the books labor. You know they’re not serious.
Reform. Chase the lobbyists out. PACS are legalized bribery.
Ryan was a POS and Pritzker is too. Blagojevich? Please. Jim Edgar is the one who came up with the pension ramp farce. Look where we are at now.
Left/right is a scam too. It’s a uniparty, a combine, a fugazi. I’d vote for Marjorie Taylor Greene tomorrow if I could. She’s one of the fewer making sense now. Ditto Massie. I really like his firm principles. He won’t bend the knee to PT Barnum and the frauds who run the nation.
You are really low brow with this left/right stuff.
Reform is needed.
Lobbying IS petitioning the government; a right protected under the First. So go ahead Robert chase the lobbyists out and head right to the Supreme Court while doing so. Oh wait. The Court already has weighed in on that in the past and affirmed exactly that.
You need your own Substack Robert. Because it seems you’re the only one here that knows everything.
LOL!
Bruce, lobbyists wrote Obamacare, among most other bills. I guess I need to clarify in this my team/your team paradigm that we’ve been duped by elites into accepting as unchangeable.
Professional lobbyists need to go. John Boehner lobbies for the marijuana industry. DIck Durbin’s wife, after a nationwide search, I’m sure, has a lucrative lobbying business.
Citizens have the 1st Amendment right to petition the government. You don’t thin k I know this?
If only we could censor those who disagree with us.
I paid my 50 bucks just like you did.
Censorship is essentially what the jacobins in the Tribune Guild did to Kass and why he took the buyout and left.
You have to know the system stinks to high heaven, both parties are in the tank, and Trump, even if he has a scintilla of the character or virtue you may wish upon him is so far over his skies in energy, intellect, and knowledge, that he can never accomplish true reform of anything.
All that being said, his election has exposed them all, both parties, and has shown it doesn’t matter who is in power, we are all screwed.
Until we, the voters, take back the country, until we stop letting these clowns steal form us, it will keep getting worse.
Must I remind you our hoist Kass, begged Ken Griffin in this space to fund an opponent to Pritzker. Now, I agree Pritzker is awful, but shouldn’t we, the voters, after a healthy debate select our representatives?
DO we have to suck up to billionaires to address our concerns?
Robert: Well I’m certainly not going to get into a long drawn out discussion with everything you mentioned … particularly not on someone’s else’s web site. But I will point out that everything you said regarding lobbyists – while largely true – do not nullify the fact that lobbying is in fact “petitioning the government” and therefore protected under the First. Perhaps you might want to read some of the Court’s opinions on this issue before you go assume it would be so easy to eliminate lobbying.
One more thing. If I recall correctly Mr. Griffin donated tens of millions to the failed campaign of one Richard Irvin. The voters of Illinois did select the Fat Man, irregardless of Ken Griffin or not. Kass was delusional to think that Griffin’s money would be sufficient to keep the governorship from Mr. Pritzker. And I agree. Money in politics is a problem. But unlike you, I do not have a solution. Why? Because you are mistaken if you assume that money, in and of itself solely determines political outcomes. And then there is the little matter of the First amendment, specifically that annoying “free speech” clause. I would suggest you read the Court majority opinion in Citizen’s United showing how money and free speech are intricately linked such that eliminating money per se from politics might be akin to eliminating free speech from politics. It’s really not so simple, Robert, as you make it out to be.
Bruce, Citizen’s United was a bogus decision just as many of our fellow subscribers think Roe Vs Wade was. In fact, Ginsburg stated Roe Vs. Wade was based on shoddy constitutional grounds even though she linked the result.
Again, you accept the thievery, the lies, all the grift as long as it benefits you? Citizens United must go the way of Roe vs. Wade, overturn it.
Corporations have the same rights as people, and can give huge money? PACS, Bundling of cash, not it mention the CTU, using union dues to elect Mayor Pinheaded?
You’ve got to be kidding me. You accept trashing the constitution so long as it benefits the red team or you favorite oligarch. But when Barack Hussein Obama oversteps, or the Biden crime family, not good?
I say it’s wrong when Dems do it, it’s wrong when Republicans do it.
Trump had a chance to truly make America a better place after the Democrats have presided over its demise, but has shown to only be interested in theater.
Look at the inflation numbers, ICE isn’t making many fans out there. Oh, and it looks like he’s about to get slapped by the Supreme Court.
Lots of his voters are poor and he trusted them. He’s about as empathetic to them as Obama was to black home owners during the mortgage crisis.
Can’t we do better?
Robert. Regarding Citizens’s United. Read the decision and stop quoting secondary source BS. It is interesting in that it is one of the few cases of which I am aware to ever present to the Court twice. It involves far more than “corporations” as people. It actually is primarily a foundational First amendment case. And by the way, abolishing the “corporation as people” interpretation would obviously give the right of “free speech” during campaigns to “favored corporations” such as the likes of the NY Times and similar outlets (all hiding behind the shield of the “free press” – which in fact First United was really about), since they would be the only corporations “blessed” and “approved” to express political opinions.
Oh. And one more thing. Mr. Trump should get “slapped” by the Court regarding his tariffs. Tariffs are an enumerated power, taxation, ( “… collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises …”) unique to the Congress and NOT the executive. A decision here for Mr. Trump would negate foundational “separation of powers” ; “non delegation” and most importantly the recent Court decision in West Virginia vs EPA, 2022 citing the “major questions doctrine” (just a restatement of separation of powers). I’m betting 6 – 3 against the administration as his tariffs are clearly unconstitutional.
Robert- I for one agree with some of what you said here and so am repeating my comment from above-
I don’t understand this obsession on Kass’s site with having to label every crime with a political party. That just leads to the feelgood delusion that “my political beliefs are morally superior to yours”, which is pretty much the theme in most of Kass’s writings.
Can’t we just condemn wrong as wrong, regardless of who we vote for?
John regularly undermines himself by rightfully calling out injustice, and then turning around and ignoring or even supporting things that are actually worse.
Well Bob, there’s money in peddling the left/right bullshit. This false binary, this bogus culture war that is in fact funded by oligarchs on both sides. You see the oligarchs fund whackjobs and hit pieces to keep us arguing and make us hate each other. I don’t hate Kass. I admire him for being a man of conviction and for the way he loves his family and the City of Chicago. I have him to thank for helping to get over Trump Derangement Syndrome. Yes, Trump is a greedy, sexual abusing, scumbag, but so are so many other pols on both sides of the aisle.
I realize people like Kass and Victoria Davis Hansen are not dumb. It’s just calling out who’s in power gets you censored. Biden’s people, or whoever he was working for censored those who spoke out about Covid and many other things. The pro Israel crowd bought Tik Tock, put lightweight Bari Weiss in charge of CBS to manage the news.
Pharma provides up to 60% of the ad revenue for cable and network news. How the hell can they report independently. Kass is very careful not to go after the right when they are hypocritical thieves. You have to sing for your supper.
I belief with all my heart that most folks out there, 2/3 of us at least can agree on most of the major issues that plague or nation, and can agree to disagree on those that we do not.
You see, thoughtful deliberation, negotiation, and putting the nation and its citizenry first are not lucrative.
Look at all the money that’s still going out the door. The House can cut social spending, but the total dollars going out the door are still far more than we take in. How is that conservatism?
How can Massie, who votes with Trump over 90% of the time, be an enemy of his own party?
As Trump said, it’s all fake news, these political parties are a joke.
Release all the Epstein files. If Democrats and Republican go down, so be it. We need the younger generation, people like Kass’s kids, our kids to take the reins. This geriatric home that is Congress needs to be swept out.
Give the kids a chance.
They can’t do any worse
Thank you John for this column, and thanks for the years you reported the Willis devastation. It brought painful comparison to the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels fire . In recent months, it’s become fashionable among Pritzker-types to curse anyone who says “My prayers are with the Willis family” or “I pray we never see another tragedy like the Willis kids.” When Catholic children were murdered while attending mass, those who offered prayer were degraded as hypocrites. After the Charlie Kirk assassination all types of hatemongers celebrated , including a Southwest Side school teacher. As the undocumented truck drivers proceed to trial , we can expect shrill accusations of racism against anyone who offers prayer to the loved ones. The open-borders obsession has unleashed hysteria and mass neurosis. I see it every day in Oregon, where antifa gangs have terrorized Portland families for a decade. I’ve even read hostile comments on Facebook about Joe Abraham. I admire his courage very much, for speaking the truth when most of us our afraid to. . . https://johnkassnews.com/a-broken-father-a-broken-nation/
As I was driving up 294 the other day, I too thought of the Willis family. In years past, I always remembered my father saying, “the truck drivers are the safest drivers on the road!” Dad was correct. But that was then and this is now. Shamefully, this is no longer true, and I am now frightened as I drive on our expressways, especially in the presence of the hundreds of trucks on the road. God only knows who is behind the wheel.
I find it to be of some interest that George Ryan was, indeed, punished for what became “The Willis Case” and the corruption that led to that tragedy. I’ve yet to see anything happen to the Governor of California or any of the other states that are gleefully issuing CDLs to those who can’t qualify….watched with some horrified amusement last week when an Arkansas trooper encountered a trucker who didn’t understand English, a man from India, who had to be talked to for some time until he understood that the trooper was telling him to put on his PANTS!! Why is nothing happening to those states/governors where this is allowed to continue? The states who have put these killers on the road? I’m glad the Trump administration through some of the Cabinet Secretaries is pulling these guys off the road as they’re found, but so far no governmental officers seem to be suffering ANY consequence – even though there have been horrific deaths in how many states attributed to these incompetent drivers.
Reading of the disdain some other writers have for Mr. Trump is doing not much other than allowing us to think a bit less of the writer(s). The world’s perfect person has yet to run for President, and to have that expectation is a false ideal. The combination of a vicious, vitriolic press and a current President who is more open about his thoughts, his life and his ‘world’ tends to exaggerate his failings in the minds of those who either weren’t around and/or weren’t ‘aware’ during the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton and a host of others. When Judith Exner wrote her book about the job she held in the Kennedy White House, complete with an in-the-building office to facilitate the various “appointments” some of the ladies had with the then-President, his brother/Attorney General, etc., you know what happened? Nothing! Biden’s daughter Ashley wrote about the showers she frequently took with her FATHER!!! and all of a sudden, no more tv interviews of her promoting her book, and she is now apparently back in Delaware, doing “social justice work”, and the world ignored it as “…Joe being Joe.” So, in large measure it DOES depend on which party the miscreant belongs to or affiliates with!
And it wasn’t only past Presidents who enjoyed having their chicanery ignored by the press and the people. One can only marvel at the massive statue in The Federal City honoring Dr. King – and one can only marvel at the kind of life he lived “in private” – and the world ignores it all while even the dust that falls from his shoes appears to be revered.
All of this is frustrating, to say the least. I wonder how many of the critics here present can say they’ve voted in EVERY election for which they’ve been legally qualified to cast a ballot? Wondering how many of those here waggling their collective bony fingers at the miscreants in office have ever run for office, won their election and served the people – – – or do you just talk a good story? Did you ever actually get off your backside, make some real sacrifices (personally, in your business and yes, even within your family) to serve the public as an elected official? Just wondering……pundits who are also fence-sitters are rather amusing.