Marcus Coleman told Democratic lawmakers to their faces on Tuesday that he doesn’t want their condolences. He wants accountability.
Coleman’s 7-year-old daughter, Dalilah, suffered a fractured skull, a broken femur and a traumatic brain injury in a 2024 crash in Southern California, when an 18-wheeler traveling 60 mph slammed into the vehicle she was riding in. The truck driver, Partap Singh, was an illegal immigrant from India who had obtained a California commercial driver’s license. Authorities said Singh was driving at an unsafe speed and failed to stop for traffic in a construction zone before the crash.
Coleman testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, which held a hearing on sanctuary policies in California, Colorado and Maryland. Republicans on the panel argue those policies endanger Americans by blocking cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration enforcement.
“I reject your guys’ sympathy,” Coleman said.
He said no Democratic lawmaker had reached out to him since his daughter’s injuries.
“Not one of you guys have ever sat there and seen me in the hallways and said, ‘Hey, sorry about your daughter.’ You guys do it right here where you guys are grandstanding on top of your soapbox. This is when you guys care. Right here inside this room is the only time you guys care.”
Coleman said his daughter “doesn’t deserve” what happened to her.
“She didn’t ask for any of this. The people that jumped the fence did though. They knew exactly what they were doing. They still chose to move forward in that direction. And every day something’s happening to somebody, and it is your guys’ fault. I hold each and every one of you responsible for it, and I always will.”
Coleman said the crash has upended his family financially. He is no longer working as a truck driver and is raising nine children.
“I’m no longer truck driving. I no longer make the money that we used to make. I’m now pinching pennies. I have nine kids, by the way, that I take care of, and I had to sit there and stretch that.”
He also pointed to his wife, an immigrant who came to the United States legally, arguing that people who enter the country illegally shouldn’t be treated the same way.
“My wife, an immigrant. She did what she’s supposed to do. She did exactly what she’s supposed to do to get here.”
Coleman closed with a blunt jab at Democratic supporters of sanctuary policies, gesturing toward his daughter.
“I think that building needs to get checked for mold or something, because you guys are really out of your guys’ mind thinking that sanctuary cities are the way to go. This is the end result of Sanctuary City right here.”
A Second Family, A Second Warning
Patricia Fox also testified Tuesday about her adult daughter, Carissa “Luu” Aspnes, who was permanently disabled in a March 2025 hit-and-run crash in Colorado involving an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. Fox said her daughter was thrown headfirst into a concrete barrier at nearly 50 mph, and the driver and passenger fled without checking whether she was alive.
“Despite her initial prognosis, Carissa survived. Praise God, but survival and recovery are not the same.”
Fox said she now uses a Hoyer lift to get her daughter out of bed because Aspnes cannot sit up or stand on her own. She blends her daughter’s food and feeds her through a G-tube, administers her medications, bathes her, and sleeps lightly in case a pulse oximeter alarm sounds in the night.
“One collision created an entire family of victims.”
Fox said her grief carries an added weight because of the driver’s immigration status.
“If an American citizen had hit my daughter, I wouldn’t be here asking, ‘Why was somebody who had no lawful right to be in this country here to hit her in the first place?'”
Fox told lawmakers directly that this issue shouldn’t split along party lines.
“The lives of American citizens should matter to both sides. We get it. You guys hate Trump. The campaign ads, they’re all the same. Taking the fight to Trump, standing against Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. You need to love Americans more than you hate Trump. That’s not partisan politics. It’s literally your job.”
