My son was killed by an illegal immigrant. Now I'm exposing the chaos of the system that failed him... and why it MUST be the topic on which the midterms turn

This November will mark a full year since my son Billy and his sweet wife Jenny were killed in a devastating car crash.  

It's the kind of anniversary that no parent ever believes they'll experience, the death of their child. In a different world, our family would be celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary.

But I will never be able to hold my son and see his dimples as he grins or hug my daughter-in-law close.

Billy will never realize his greatest hope – to be a father and have a family of his own. Jenny will never become the piano technician she dreamed of being. And I will never again get the chance to tell them I love them.

Because at just 25 and 24, respectively, Billy and Jenny were beginning their journey as a married couple when their lives were cut short when an 18-wheeler truck, driven by a man who entered this country illegally, jack-knifed across the road.

It sat there with neither hazard lights lit nor warning signs placed in the road, to alert oncoming traffic of the obstacle that blocked both carriageways in the darkness.

Although the driver stayed at the scene, he did not report the highway block.

It wasn't until another driver encountered the truck about 10 to 15 minutes before Billy and Jenny did that 911 was called.

I can remember everything about the night of November 24, 2025. While driving back to Portland, Oregon from Preston, Idaho, Jenny's hometown, Billy and Jenny called us from their Subaru Outback, their cat Bert tucked in the backseat.

They had been married for 16 days. It was a union that felt pre-destined. They'd been inseparable ever since their first date – a blind date where they attended a church event a year earlier. Billy and Jenny had this magical, lightning-in-a-bottle, one-in-a-million kind of love.

When they began dating, Billy couldn't stop smiling – he was simply more alive around her and she was the same around him. On their wedding day, he couldn't stop saying 'my wife;' it was in every sentence he said that day.

After tying the knot at the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Portland, Oregon on November 8, the newlyweds embarked on a whirlwind tour for the next two weeks, honeymooning at Disneyland and then journeying to Idaho for a second wedding reception with Jenny's friends and family.

On the call that fateful night, we discussed whether they should stay in a hotel for the night or continue driving. It was 8.30pm; Billy and Jenny insisted that they felt well rested and fresh. We decided that they would continue the drive to our home in Springfield – about 200 miles down the road, where I would eagerly be awaiting their arrival. It was a decision I will regret for the rest of my life.

My husband had been tracking their location and at 9.30pm, he noticed they had stopped moving. We tried calling them, but there was no answer. We checked Trip Check, a website for Oregon that reports on road incidents and conditions but initially found no answers.

We kept refreshing the site for more information and later, when an accident was reported on the route where Billy and Jenny's location had stopped, my husband called the Highway Patrol non-emergency number, searching for any answers about our son and daughter-in-law. The information came in dribs and drabs with each call – confirmation that there was an accident, but we heard nothing about who was affected.

For what seemed like ages, I sat on the couch with my daughter Josie, praying that nothing had happened to Billy and Jenny, that they were safe and out of harm's way. I was in deep denial until two state troopers knocked on our door to deliver a horrific message that would change all of our lives forever.

Here is what I remember about what the two officers told me.

Billy and Jenny died at the scene. There is no way that they could have avoided this accident. They couldn't see it coming. It was instantaneous, which means that they didn't suffer. There were no skid marks, which one of the officers explained, meant that there wasn't even enough time for them to be afraid. These details are comforting, but hollow.

What we learned about what caused the deadly crash still makes my blood go cold. An 18-wheel tractor trailer driven by Rajinder Kumar had jack-knifed across all the lanes of the highway, blocking traffic in both directions. Despite it being pitch black at night, there were no warning lights, flares, cones or emergency signals – not even the truck's hazard lights were on.

Kumar, it was later revealed in police reports, was an illegal immigrant who had a non-domiciled Commercial Driver's License (CDL) in California and a work authorization. He did not follow proper protocol that night when he did not notify the authorities about the jack-knifing. He did not give any warning to oncoming traffic that his trailer was stretched across the entire road, despite having warning equipment. He did not call 911. We later found out that he did not speak English, something that is federally required to hold a CDL. 

Kumar was arrested the night of the crash on two counts of criminally negligent homicide - a grand jury later raised the charges to two counts of manslaughter in the first degree - and three counts of reckless endangerment, to which he pled not guilty.

I've never considered myself a highly political person, but the issue of immigration has been blasted into my life as destructively and instantly as the 80,000-pound tractor trailer driven by Kumar that took the lives of my son and daughter-in-law.

I am a life-long Democrat, but my son's unfair and entirely preventable death has me questioning everything I believe in. We are living with the untenable chaos of allowing millions of undocumented people in under President Biden.

Kumar entered the country illegally in 2022 in Lukeville, Arizona, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Biden Administration immediately released him and gave him a work permit. California Governor Gavin Newsom made the unilateral decision to give him a CDL, DHS records show.

If you allow millions of people en masse into the country, you need to have a plan. I'll be the first to say I don't have all the answers, but we have a major problem with immigration in this country and it's only getting more urgent by the day.

Aided by Oregon's sanctuary state policies and bail policies, Kumar posted bail on April 2 and was granted release. Twenty days later, on April 22, he was arrested by ICE and taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. 

Although Kumar returned to Deschutes County Jail this month, his deportation order to India still stands. He has hearings scheduled that could grant him bail and release once again, leaving him vulnerable to deportation before his criminal trial on January 19, 2027.

When Kumar returned to Oregon this month ahead of his October 23 bail hearing, I was given the opportunity by ICE to speak with him briefly in the parking lot before he entered the Deschutes County jail. I stood a respectful distance, about five to six feet away. I introduced myself to him and he made eye contact. When I told him that I was Billy's mother, however, he looked down and didn't look up again. 

'I know you didn't get up that morning planning to destroy three families' lives,' I said. 'I know you have a family in India and I want you to know that I am praying for you and your family. I hope that we can all find peace at the end of this.' 

And I truly believe that. I know that it would be important to Billy for me to forgive him, but it's so hard. I still have so many questions. 

I think Kumar deserves a fair trial and a chance to defend himself publicly, but I'd also like to find out why he made the decisions that he did. Why didn't he turn on his warning light? Why didn't he call for help?

I can't help but wonder if Kumar did not call 911 that night because he was worried about his immigration status. I'm worried about the next illegal immigrant who's in an accident and afraid to call 911 either for fear of their status being exposed or because they simply can't speak English. I worry about what's going to happen because of that, and who might die.

I have a serious fear that Kumar may be deported before the trial, which would make it beyond difficult to get him back to Deschutes County for trial. If deported, he would need federal permission to return for the trial, not to mention the financing for him to return.

The Deschutes County District Attorneys victims' advocate office has been in touch with me, but there are laws saying that they can't communicate with ICE, so once they picked him up, it made things very complicated. 

We've lost too many of our youth to people who should not have legally been here in the first place.

I truly believe that if Kumar had been here legally, there is a greater chance that he would have followed the correct protocol and my son and daughter-in-law would still be alive. There is a huge lack of support for immigrants once they are in this country. Should we really be surprised at the chaos that results from that?

If we're going to make laws, we should obey them. When I contacted my senators about preventing tragedies like what happened to my son and daughter-in-law by enforcing more immigration regulation, I consistently got the answer that 'nobody in DC is going to listen to us because we're Democrats.'

I'm appalled by the 'why even try' attitude that I got from Democrats and the lack of follow-through with an issue that this party has exacerbated.

With midterm elections and the anniversary of Billy and Jenny's deaths coming up, I made the decision to testify before Congress earlier this year. I could not stand meekly by while the issue of immigration has slipped off the radar. Billy and Jenny deserved justice and I needed legislators to understand that this is a problem that needs to be addressed now. 

I told the panel that I was ashamed of how my party was handling the issue of immigration and I stand by that. I can’t help feeling like they created a problem that they’re now refusing to address or take accountability for. Worse, they seem apathetic about the issue. 

While I was giving my testimony, Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) fell asleep. I wanted to ask him if my grief bored him.

[Editor's note: The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Nadler for comment.]

Nadler's behavior that day embodies the passivity I have felt from so many of our elected officials, Democrats and even some Republicans, as other victims and I have called for an end to the dangers enabled by the lax attitudes towards immigration in this country. I've called and written letters to congressmen, but it's been an uphill battle to get anybody to pay attention or even get a reply.

This issue should be so much bigger than party politics. My husband is a Republican and I'm a Democrat, and we can work things out without venom and vitriol and fighting against each other, so why can't the people who love this country enough to serve it put their parties aside and talk about what really matters? I pray that they don't have to lose a child like I did to come to this realization.

Every day, I carry the weight of knowing that Billy and Jenny will never get to have the family they wanted, that they'll never travel the world like they dreamed, and never grow old with one another.

Instead of testifying in front of Congress and lobbying for immigration reform, I should be getting to know my daughter-in-law and looking ahead to spoiling my future grandchildren. I shouldn't have had to plan their joint funeral while their wedding gifts were still arriving. This shouldn't have happened at all because Kumar shouldn't have been in the country in the first place.

As told to Cady Lang