Illegal immigrant truck driver charged after Kansas City crash kills mother, two children 

A mother and two of her young children were killed Monday after an illegal immigrant truck driver failed to stop for a traffic jam in Kansas City, immigration officials say.

Eldar Skander, 39, an illegal immigrant from Ukraine residing in Chicago, was traveling at high speed in a white Volvo semi-truck when he barreled into a line of cars stopped in traffic, according to court documents.

Four vehicles were involved in the crash at East 19th Street and Highway 71 in Kansas City, with three of the cars suffering severe damage.

A Honda Odyssey carrying seven passengers was involved in the crash. Luis Sorbalo, 8, and Samir Sorbalo, 4, were pronounced dead at the scene. Their mother, Olga Sorbalo, was transported to a nearby hospital, where she also died.

“Reckless open-border policies have resulted in countless preventable tragedies,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wrote on social media. “Three more innocent American lives were lost. Two children who will never get to grow up, and a mother who will never get to watch them grow. …

“This is our WHY.”

The Odyssey’s driver suffered life-threatening injuries, and the three other passengers, including a 2-year-old child, were seriously injured. Sorbalo’s husband and third child were among the surviving passengers in the vehicle, according to Fox News.

The family of five had been traveling to the airport to return home to Vancouver, Washington, after visiting family in Kansas City.

“Liviu Sorbalo lost his beloved wife and two precious young children,” a GoFundMe page for the family reads. “This heartbreaking loss has left their entire family, relatives, friends, and church community in deep sorrow.”

The drivers of two of the other vehicles involved in the crash were taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries. They were the only occupants of those cars.

The fourth and final vehicle, a FedEx truck, sustained minor damage, and its driver wasn’t injured.

Skander was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

“The other cultures in the world are not like ours. They don’t value life,” said host Kevin Kietzman on his show on KCMO Talk Radio. “They clearly don’t value their own lives, or they wouldn’t be doing this. And if they don’t value their own life, how much value do they put on yours?

“The answer is 0.”

Officers found a tablet open to YouTube on the semi’s floorboard, along with a camera that might have captured the incident. The tablet had Velcro on it that matched Velcro on the truck’s dashboard within the driver’s line of sight, suggesting it could have been attached to the dashboard for the driver to watch while driving.

An accident investigator calculated that if Skander had been driving the speed limit, he would have had between 20 and 22 seconds to react to the stopped vehicles in front of him, according to court documents.

Skander was released from the hospital and taken to a police facility. He faces three counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and is being held on an ICE detainer.

(Photo credit: Sorbalo family, GoFundMe)