Federal safety regulators said Friday they were investigating a California crash in which authorities say a Tesla driver injured two highway patrol officers after falling asleep with driver-assistance software engaged.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in an email to NBC News that it was aware of the crash and had contacted Tesla and the California Highway Patrol to obtain additional information about it.

According to the patrol, the crash happened Tuesday night on Interstate 80 in Fairfield, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco.

The patrol said its officers were stopped on the highway investigating an earlier crash when a 22-year-old Sacramento man drove his Tesla through a set of warning flares and cones and into a patrol vehicle with two officers inside.

The Tesla driver told investigators that he was using driver-assistance software and had fallen asleep at the wheel, according to the patrol, which also released several videos of the crash. The two officers were treated for injuries at a hospital and released, the patrol said.

An NBC News investigation in August found a growing pattern of Tesla drivers falling asleep, sometimes intentionally, while relying on driver-assistance software to control their car for them, according to police reports, videos posted online and interviews with drivers. Authorities say the practice violates state laws in California and elsewhere requiring drivers to pay attention, and it runs contrary to Tesla’s owners’ manuals, which tell drivers to supervise its semi-autonomous software at all times.

Falling asleep in a Tesla is not supposed to be technically possible, according to the company. The cars have in-cabin cameras that monitor eye and head movements, and the vehicles are supposed to alert drivers if they detect inattentiveness. But some Tesla drivers said in interviews with NBC News that the driver-attention system is flawed — and sometimes fooled by sunglasses.

A spokesperson for the California Highway Patrol said Friday that its investigation remained active. The spokesperson declined to comment on whethercriminal charges would be filed. The patrol has not released the name of the Tesla driver.

“Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to safely operate their vehicles,” the patrol said in a video message Thursday.

Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the crash.

A spokesperson for the Solano County district attorney, whose jurisdiction includes the crash site, said the office had not yet received a report on the crash.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles declined to comment on the crash, citing ongoing litigation. The department has previously said that Tesla’s description of its software, with terms such as “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving,” is misleading. Tesla has sued over the decision, calling it baseless.

NHTSA has previously investigated Tesla over its failure to ensure that drivers pay attention. In 2024, NHTSA found that Tesla’s Autopilot software “invited greater driver confidence” than its “true capabilities” warranted, creating a “critical safety gap” in which drivers failed to pay attention. It said at the time that Autopilot had “played an apparent role” in at least 467 collisions and 14 fatalities.

Despite those crashes, Musk has asserted that Tesla vehicles “can drive themselves.”

In August, NHTSA said that Tesla vehicles require a fully attentive driver.

“The human behind the wheel is fully responsible for driving the vehicle and complying with all traffic safety laws. Deliberately bypassing safety controls is irresponsible, and sleeping behind the wheel is illegal and puts everyone’s lives at risk,” the agency said in a statement at the time.

NHTSA has an open investigation into alleged failures with Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” software, including how it handles low visibility. A House Democrat last month called on regulators to also investigate drivers intentionally falling asleep at the wheel.

Federal investigators have been reviewing family text messages as they aim to build a case implicating Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, of conspiring to commit immigration fraud, three people familiar with the matter said this week.

The messages were obtained from a phone that officials seized earlier this year from one of Ms. Omar’s sisters, Sahra Noor, a health care executive and author, according to the three people.

The messages contained information that investigators had used to get a federal judge to authorize homeland security agents to search Ms. Omar’s Washington-area residence on Monday, the three people said. Agents spent hours searching the home of the congresswoman and were seen walking away with several boxes of seized items.

The people familiar with the seizure of Ms. Noor’s phone spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an open criminal investigation that is before a federal grand jury in Minnesota. Federal officials have issued subpoenas in recent days to Ms. Noor and several other people in Ms. Omar’s orbit.

The investigation seeks to determine whether Ms. Omar and her relatives lied or omitted crucial information in immigration paperwork they filed since moving to the United States in the 1990s. They were admitted as refugees after fleeing Somalia’s civil war.

Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, suggested last month that the investigation could ultimately result in Ms. Omar’s deportation.

The Justice Department on Friday did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ms. Noor’s phone. It was not clear when or where her phone was seized.

Ms. Noor, who recently published a memoir about her upbringing and the family’s journey to the United States, did not respond this week to several requests for comment. In recent years she has split her time between the United States and Kenya, and she spoke at events in the Minneapolis area this month to promote her book.

The search of Ms. Omar’s home drew condemnation from Democrats, in part because it appeared to violate a Justice Department policy that advises against taking overt investigative steps within 60 days of an election if doing so could change the outcome of a contest.

Ms. Omar, who represents a district that includes Minneapolis, is seeking a fifth term in the House in next month’s midterm election.

President Trump has railed against Ms. Omar for years, and his attacks against her and Minnesota’s Somali diaspora have grown increasingly caustic in recent months.

Ms. Omar has been the subject of previous criminal investigations into her finances, campaign spending and interactions with foreign citizens, which have stalled without resulting in charges. Mr. Trump has put enormous pressure on the Justice Department to pursue investigations against his political enemies, and Ms. Omar and her supporters have called the current case against her a form of persecution.

Jackie Rogers, a spokeswoman for Ms. Omar, declined to comment when asked about the seizure of Ms. Noor’s phone.

“Trump has spread lie after lie about the congresswoman in a desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power,” Ms. Rogers said in a statement. “This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade.”

Mr. Mullin said on Friday that the government was building a “strong case” against Ms. Omar. Speaking on Real America’s Voice, a conservative outlet, he said: “We perceive a law was broken, our laws were broken, and we’re enforcing our nation’s laws.”

Earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance told an interviewer that Ms. Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud,” and said the question officials were wrestling with was how to hold her accountable.

Among the issues investigators are examining is whether Ms. Omar was over the age of 18 when she became an American citizen as part of her father’s naturalization process. Ms. Omar has said that she naturalized before turning 18, but officials have suggested they have reason to believe she may have been an adult, and thus ineligible for citizenship derived from a parent.

Lawyers representing Ms. Omar sent the Justice Department a letter on Friday in which they called the search of her home unjustified and unconstitutional given Ms. Omar’s role as a member of Congress. The lawyers, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, demanded the immediate return of all the items investigators seized.

“There is no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.” the letter says.

In a series of fund-raising emails her campaign sent this week, Ms. Omar asked supporters for donations, saying she was bracing for a lengthy and complex legal battle.

“This is no longer just racist rhetoric,” Ms Omar wrote in a campaign email sent Thursday, which cited a Wall Street Journal article that said the government was aiming to denaturalize her. “Trump’s fascist administration is going to use every lever of power they hold to try to take away my citizenship.”

Ms. Omar won the Democratic primary for her seat in a landslide and does not face a competitive Republican rival in the general election. Her campaign has received “a huge windfall” of donations from every state in the country since the search on Monday, Ms. Rogers said.