Republican officials from across Pennsylvania are calling for an investigation into how an Uzbek national and suspected terrorist recently arrested by federal law enforcement was able to obtain a Pennsylvania commercial driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced this week that they arrested 31-year-old Akhror Bozorov \u2013 who is wanted in Uzbekistan for reportedly belonging to a terrorist organization \u2013 in Kansas on Nov. 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a release<\/a> that Bozorov was arrested in Kansas while working as a commercial truck driver. A photograph of his commercial driver\u2019s license, released by the department, shows it was issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in July 2025.<\/p>\n According to the agency, Bozorov is accused of \u201cdistributing terrorist propaganda calling for jihad online and recruiting terrorists to join the jihad movement.\u201d Uzbekistan authorities issued an arrest warrant for Bozorov in 2022.<\/p>\n In a letter<\/a> sent this week to Attorney General Dave Sunday and Auditor General Timothy DeFoor, Republican leaders in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives asked Sunday to work with law enforcement \u201cto ensure illegal aliens and\/or alleged terrorists do not possess driver\u2019s licenses of any kind, with or without a REAL ID indication.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe would also request you investigate whether any fraudulent action took place in this case that resulted in this person receiving a driver\u2019s license,\u201d they wrote to Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Republican legislative leaders, including House Minority Leader Jesse Topper, Republican Whip Tim O\u2019Neal, Minority Appropriations Committee Chair Jim Struzzi and others, also asked DeFoor to work with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Department of State to review safeguards in the commonwealth\u2019s processes for obtaining driver\u2019s licenses, as well as the state\u2019s automatic voter registration system.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, a Republican who is running for governor in 2026, also weighed in on the issue in a statement released through her campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe people of Pennsylvania need to know why a suspected terrorist was granted a CDL on Josh Shapiro\u2019s watch,\u201d Garrity said Tuesday. \u201cThis is a fundamental breach of our national security and a full accounting for this failure must be opened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGovernor Shapiro needs to fully investigate and answer for how the suspected terrorist was able to be granted a CDL, as well as review all licenses issued to ensure no other violent individuals slipped through the cracks of his Administration,\u201d Garrity added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alexis Campbell, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, told City & State that the agency reviews required immigration and naturalization documents when applicants apply for a commercial license.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever non-citizen applicants apply for a CDL in Pennsylvania, PennDOT reviews the necessary immigration and naturalization documents and completes the federal process for verifying lawful presence, confirming the non-citizen\u2019s legal status in real-time using the U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u2019s SAVE database before issuing a license,\u201d Campbell said in a statement. \u201cIf the applicant clears the federal SAVE process, which confirms the applicant is residing in the U.S. under legal status, and successfully meets all other criteria, a license is issued,\u201d Campbell added. \u201cPennDOT completes these two checks to confirm legal status with the federal government every time it issues a license to a non-citizen, and has followed this process without exception in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n The issuance of driver\u2019s licenses to those without legal status has caused friction in other states as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n In August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lambasted the nation\u2019s immigration system<\/a> following a deadly accident in Florida on the state\u2019s turnpike that left three people dead. According to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles<\/a>, the driver, Harjinger Singh, entered the country without documentation in 2018 and made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike prior to the crash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican officials from across Pennsylvania are calling for an investigation into how an Uzbek national and suspected terrorist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8434,28,30,29,5647,50,2155],"class_list":["post-39355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-capitol-beat","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-policy","tag-politics","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}