San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Human smuggling in S. Texas on rise
Far more migrants in big rigs so far this year than for all of ’20
The 911 calls came before midnight Feb. 8 to San Antonio-area authorities.
A man said he and about 80 other people were inside a white water tanker. The caller was unable to tell dispatchers where they were, but he said the truck stopped next to the road.
“Help! Holy God!” a male voice is heard, apparently gasping for air, according to the 911 calls. It appears from one call that someone opened a hatch. One man shouts: “Let’s go.” Another says, “We’re out of here.”
The Bexar County Sheriff ’s Office and other police responded to the calls, which appeared to have originated in the southern part of the county, but deputies were unable to find the tanker.
Two weeks later, on Feb. 18, the Sheriff’s Office got similar 911 calls again — about a different tractortrailer.
Authorities spotted a refrigerated truck that fit the description at a South Bexar County truck stop. As they closed in, more than 150 immigrants poured out of the trailer, as snow fell and temperatures dipped below freezing. Most ran into the darkness and escaped.
Homeland Security Investigations, which took over the cases, said it had stopped and interviewed about 50 of the migrants and is reviewing their immigration status.
Catholic Charities in San Antonio said it put 42 of them in hotel rooms and
gave them food, water and other necessities. The organization also helped them get to destinations with host families in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and other cities, said J. Antonio Fernandez, CEO of the charity.
“Some decided to stay because it was too cold,” Fernandez said. “One of the men had only shorts, a T-shirt and gym shoes.”
The Border Patrol confirmed that the tanker was found in Laredo after the frantic search in San Antonio. One smuggling suspect was arrested.
Court records show the two San Antonio incidents are part of an increase in smuggling since President Joe Biden took office.
Last weekend alone, Border Patrol agents at two checkpoints near Laredo foiled three other smuggling attempts, finding more than 230 immigrants inside trailers. The immigrants were from Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Those trucks and the two in San Antonio were carrying as many as 460 immigrants, about four times more than those smuggled in the dozen tractor-trailer cases that resulted in charges last year in South Texas, a review of court records shows. The dozen cases filed last year involved about 115 immigrants.
Last year’s biggest load — 83 immigrants in a tractor-trailer — was stopped at the Border Patrol checkpoint north of Laredo along Interstate 35 on Jan. 26, 2020. Smuggling arrests dwindled as the year dragged on, apparently as the COVID-19 pandemic tamped down migration.
But since Oct. 1, the Border Patrol’s Laredo sector has discovered more than 3,100 undocumented immigrants in trailers in largescale smuggling attempts — a 160 percent increase over the same period a year ago.
“That’s almost a hundred separate cases that that incurred in,” said Laredo Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak. “We
had one, as a matter of fact last week, in the midst of the cold temperatures, that had 117 individuals locked in a trailer. … The number is increasing, and certainly that’s a concern for us.”
Hudak said the checkpoint on I-35 north of Laredo sees 5,000 to 6,000 tractor-trailers a day coming from the border’s busiest commercial land crossing, and smugglers use it their advantage.
Overall, Hudak said, his agents have arrested more than 40,000 undocumented immigrants across the Laredo sector in the same period — a 140 percent increase.
Immigration practitioners and observers cite a number of reasons for the increased smuggling activity, though Border Patrol agents have said this is typically a time of year they see an increase in illegal immigration.
Court officials said that, besides the health toll, the fallout from COVID-19 had scaled back operations in the legal system and limited the number of immigrants who could be held to testify against smugglers.
San Antonio immigration lawyer Simon Azar-Farr said the warming climate and increased truck traffic after the COVID-19 shutdowns will lead to more smuggling attempts.
“We will see more of this in the coming months,” Azar-Farr said. “Those willing to come to this country and undergo this method are generally not discouraged because there’s some virus in the air.”
In light of the potential wave of undocumented immigrants, the federal government is scrambling for space to house some immigrants, specifically one particular group: unaccompanied minors.
On Monday, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department reopened a tent facility in Carrizo Springs to house up to 700 teens and youths. It was converted two years ago into a holding facility under former President Donald Trump but closed in July 2019.
Health and Human Services operates long-term facilities for immigrant children apprehended by the Border Patrol, and its 7,100 available beds are almost full.
Some lawyers dispute that the Carrizo Springs facility was reopened for new arrivals — and instead is being used to move minors around to sidestep the 1997 Flores legal settlement that prohibits the government from holding minors longer than 20 days in detention.
“It restarts the clock (when they’re moved). It’s a shell game,” San Antonio immigration lawyer Linda Brandmiller said, criticizing the move to detain minors. “I expected better from the Biden administration.”
But she noted that immigrant traffic is increasing.
“It’s picking up because of Biden,” Brandmiller said. “People are more hopeful that they can get into and stay in the U.S.”
Aristides “Harry” Jimenez, who as deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio oversaw a swath that stretched to Del Rio, Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley, said smuggling immigrants in tankers is not new.
Tankers used by smugglers are the same or similar to the ones used in transporting water or wastewater used in fracking in the South Texas oil fields, he noted.
“The tanker can blend in when it goes through the Border Patrol checkpoint,” said Jimenez, who retired from HSI and now runs a consulting business. “Those tankers also can drive around Border Patrol checkpoints through dirt roads.”
He added that large-scale smuggling attempts are becoming more prevalent.
“As a smuggler, how do I sell my product?” Jimenez said. “Now, with the new administration, the human smuggling organizations are telling people that if they live in the U.S., an amnesty is coming.”
Jimenez said agents are faced with a daunting task. Even if they are able to link any of the people already charged in Laredo with the two smuggling incidents in San Antonio, the suspects may be of little help.
At best, they are middlemen, recruiting truckers to transport loads or people who accept thousands of dollars in cash to clandestinely transport humans or drugs, Jimenez said. The networks are loosely interconnected, and other middlemen easily step in, according to Jimenez and the Border Patrol’s Hudak.
“That guy in Laredo may not be able to provide a lot of info. He’s not anywhere high on the food chain,” Jimenez said. “He’s recruiting for three to four smuggling organizations. He’s also getting immigrants out of stash houses from three or four other organizations.”
Several of the cases examined by the San Antonio Express-News involved drivers who had no commercial driver’s licenses. Some were recruited through third parties, while others told investigators that they were approached at truck stops in Laredo.
“Every time the smugglers do this, they are putting immigrants in a place where they can’t escape, they’re trapped,” Jimenez said. “The real cost of human smuggling is human life.”