Trailer tragedy highlights uptick in immigrant deaths
As Mexico curbs drug cartels, they turn to human smuggling
“In an indirect way, we’re subsidizing that industry. Our deterrent policies are going to cause more deaths.” Eddie Canales, director of the South Texas Human Rights Center
The grisly discovery Sunday of a group of dead and near-death immigrants crammed into a tractor-trailer made headlines across the nation and rocked the immigrant community here.
The incident is just one of the recurring scenes of death that accompany migrants illegally crossing into the USA as Mexican-based organized crime rings become deeper involved in human smuggling, advocates and experts said.
Immigrants die from dehydration crossing the desert-like brush in South Texas, drown crossing the Rio Grande and are left to die by unscrupulous smugglers on a routine basis, said Eddie Canales, director of the South Texas Human Rights Center, based in Falfurrias, Texas.
The bodies of more than 600 ill-fated immigrants have been recovered in Brooks County alone in South Texas since 2004, said Canales, who documents and searches for missing migrants.
Thursday, about 160 miles south of the Walmart parking lot where the immigrants were found in the trailer truck, Canales came across his latest discovery: the body of a male migrant on a private ranch, his face half-eaten by buzzards.
“That happens every day,” Canales said. “People are forced into these situations and it’s some- thing that needs to be addressed.”
Ten people died in the trailer truck incident Sunday, and about 20 were rushed to area hospitals suffering from severe dehydration and heatstroke.
One survivor told federal investigators that as many as 200 people were crammed into the trailer for the 150-mile journey up Interstate 35 from just north of Laredo to San Antonio.
Federal officials charged the driver, James M. Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Fla., under a federal law against knowingly transporting people in the country illegally.
If convicted, he could face life sentences or the death penalty, though execution is not common in federal cases.
Bradley told investigators he was unaware of his cargo and dis- covered the bodies only when he stopped to urinate in the parking lot, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday. He never dialed 911.
Several survivors told investigators they were shuttled across the Rio Grande in rafts, walked north into Texas, then were driven in small groups to the trailer truck, according to the complaint.
As temperatures climbed above 100 degrees outside, the immigrants were put inside and told to keep quiet, according to one of the witnesses in the complaint.
“The smugglers closed the door and the interior of the trailer was pitch black, and it was already hot inside,” the complaint read. “(The survivor) stated they were not provided with any water or food. People inside were making noise to get someone’s attention but nobody ever came.”
The immigrants took turns gulping fresh air from a single ventilation hole, according to the complaint.
By the time they reached San Antonio, several of them were passed out and dying.
One of the survivors, who paid $5,500 for the trip to San Antonio, also described links between their smugglers and the Zetas, an organized crime ring in Mexico.
Over the past decade, groups like the Zetas have increasingly expanded their criminal enterprise to include human smug- gling, said Terrence Garrett, chairman of the department of Public Affairs and Security Studies at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
Since then-Mexican president Felipe Calderon declared war on the Mexican drug cartels in 2006, the organized crime rings began diversifying their efforts away from just drugs and into other activities, such as pilfering oil and natural gas and human smuggling, he said.
This shift injected more cash into human smuggling and stepped up the sophistication of techniques, such as the spread of fake passports and the increased use of trailer trucks, Garrett said.
“A lot of people think they’re just drug cartels and they are,” he said. “But, just like any good multinational corporation, they seek to diversify.”
For Canales, the result is more and more missing migrants to search for. Loved ones call his office, reporting someone who was supposed to cross over and has gone missing. Canales forwards the information to the Customs and Border Patrol office, whose agents are tasked with searching for missing migrants, he said.
His group has set out 120 water stations across the vast, dry brush land around Brooks County.
This month, he’s received more than 30 requests for missing migrants. Way too often, they remain missing or bodies are found instead.
As long as the migrants have jobs in the U.S. to come to, they’ll keep coming — and paying the cartels to get them across, he said.
“In an indirect way, we’re subsidizing that industry,” Canales said. “Our deterrent policies are going to cause more deaths.”