‘STACKS OF BODIES’ FOUND IN ABANDONED TRUCK
One of the most deadly incidents of human smuggling along US-Mexico border reported in San Antonio, Texas, where 46 migrants perish
The bodies of 46 migrants have been discovered inside an abandoned articulated truck in San Antonio, Texas, in one of the most deadly incidents of human smuggling along the US-Mexico border.
A fire department official said they found “stacks of bodies” and no signs of water in the truck, which was discovered on Monday next to railroad tracks in a remote area of the city.
Sixteen other people found inside the truck were transported to hospitals for heatstroke and exhaustion, including four minors, but no children were among the dead, officials said.
“The patients that we saw were hot to the touch, they were suffering from heatstroke, exhaustion,” San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer but there was no visible working air-conditioning unit.”
Temperatures in San Antonio, which is about 250km from the Mexican border, soared to a high of 39.4 degrees Celsius on Monday with high humidity.
Police Chief William McManus said a person who worked in a nearby building heard a cry for help and came out to investigate. The worker found the trailer doors partially opened and looked inside and saw several bodies.
McManus said this was the largest incident of its kind in the city and said three people were in custody following the incident, without elaborating.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said its Homeland Security Investigations division was investigating “an alleged human smuggling event” in coordination with local police.
The deaths highlight the challenge of controlling migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border, which have reached record highs.
The issue has proved difficult for US President Joe Biden, a Democrat who came into office in January 2021 pledging to reverse some of the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.
Republicans have criticised Biden’s border strategy ahead of the midterm congressional elections in November.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican seeking re-election, was blunt in a tweet about the Democratic leader: “These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies”.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the deaths of the migrants the “tragedy in Texas” on Twitter and said consular officials would visit hospitals where victims had been taken to help “however possible”.
A spokesman for the Honduran foreign ministry told Reuters the country’s consulates in Houston and Dallas would be investigating the incident.
Ebrard said two Guatemalans were in hospital and Guatemala’s foreign ministry said on Twitter consular officials were going to the hospital “to verify if there are two Guatemalan minors there and what condition they are in”.
The I-35 highway near where the truck was found runs through San Antonio from the Mexican border and is a popular smuggling corridor because of the large volume of truck traffic, according to Jack Staton, a former senior official with the immigration and customs investigative unit.
San Antonio was the site of a similar migrant tragedy in 2017, when 10 people suffocated to death in a sweltering truck with broken air conditioning and clogged ventilation holes as they travelled into the United States.
Dozens more had been taken to hospital with heatstroke and dehydration – with the truck believed to have been holding as many as 200 people, most of whom fled when it stopped in a car park. The driver pleaded guilty to charges related to the deaths.
Staton said migrants had regularly been intercepted in the area since the 2017 incident. “It was only a matter of time before a tragedy like this was going to happen again,” he said.
US Customs and Border Protection reported 557 deaths on the southwest border in the 12-month period ending September 30, more than double the 247 deaths reported the previous year and the highest since it began keeping track in 1998. Most were related to heat exposure.
It has not published a death tally for this year but said the Border Patrol performed 14,278 “search-and-rescue missions” in a seven-month period through May, exceeding the 12,833 missions performed during the previous 12-month period and up from 5,071 the year before.
These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies
GREG ABBOTT, GOVERNOR OF TEXAS