A truck driver who federal officials say entered the country illegally has been charged with three counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter after his semi slammed into a minivan in Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday, killing a mother and two of her young sons.
Olga Sorbalo, 35, and her sons Luis, 8, and Samir, 4, were killed on U.S. 71. The family was heading to the airport to fly home to Vancouver, Washington, after visiting relatives, the Kansas City Star reported, as cited by the New York Post. Her husband, Liviu, and their youngest child were hospitalized in critical condition.
The driver, 39-year-old Eldar Skander, was charged Tuesday. He suffered only minor injuries.
This is the kind of story I wish I never had to share with you, but the details matter.
What the court papers say
According to court documents quoted by the New York Post, Skander’s semi hit the family’s Honda Odyssey at “a high rate of speed,” setting off a chain reaction involving three other vehicles, and “there were no signs of emergency braking by the semi-truck.”
A responding investigator “grabbed an electronic tablet off the [truck’s] floorboard that was open to the YouTube application,” the documents state. The tablet had Velcro matching Velcro on the center dashboard, in view of the driver. CDLLife, citing KCTV5, reported that Skander refused to be interviewed by investigators.
Released in 2023, licensed in 2025
Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed on X that it has placed a detainer on Skander, whom it called “an illegal alien from Ukraine.” The agency’s post began, “ANOTHER BIDEN-RELEASED ILLEGAL ALIEN INVOLVED IN CRASH THAT KILLED THREE AMERICANS,” and added, “These deaths were tragic and preventable.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy filled in the rest on Thursday. He wrote that the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to him that Skander “was released into our country under Joe Biden in 2023” and held “a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license issued by Illinois in March of 2025.”
Duffy said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has identified the trucking company that put Skander behind the wheel. “We launched an investigation into that company, and how Illinois issued him the CDL,” he wrote. “This family deserves justice, and there WILL be consequences.”
Skander lives in Chicago, according to CDLLife. It is not yet clear exactly when he entered the country, and he is presumed innocent of the manslaughter charges until proven guilty in court.
An online fundraiser for the surviving family had raised more than $160,000 by Thursday. It says Olga was the daughter of a church minister in Vancouver.
The bottom line
Three people are dead, and a 3-year-old boy will grow up without his mother and his two big brothers. According to DHS, a man with no legal right to be here was released into the country under the last administration, and Illinois then handed him a license to drive an 80,000-pound truck on American highways.
Illinois officials owe the public an explanation of how that license was issued, and the company that hired him owes one for why it put him on the road. Duffy is right to investigate both, and the findings should be made public.
Congress should also settle the question in law. No one who is in this country illegally should hold a commercial driver’s license in any state, and any state that issues one should answer for it.