Two men were charged Wednesday with the case of a hot, airless tractor-trailer platform found last month with 53 migrants killed or dying in San Antonio, authorities said.
A San Antonio federal grand jury indicted Homero Zamorano Jr., 46, and Christian Martinez, 28, both of Pasadena, Texas, for transporting and conspiring to transport migrants illegally, which resulted in death ; and transporting and conspiring to transport migrants illegally and cause serious injuries.
Both remain in federal custody without bail pending trial. Martinez’s attorney, David Shearer of San Antonio, declined to comment on the allegations. A message was not immediately returned to Zamorano’s lawyer.
Conviction for death counts could result in life sentences, but the Attorney General’s Office could authorize prosecutors to seek the death penalty. Charges of serious bodily injury carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
It was the deadliest tragedy that has claimed the lives of migrants smuggled into the border from Mexico. The truck was full of 67 people, and among the dead were 27 from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, said Francisco Garduño, head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute. .
The incident happened on a remote San Antonio highway on June 27th. Arriving police officers arrested Zamorano after he was seen hiding in a nearby brush, according to a statement from the U.S. prosecutor’s office. A search on Zamorano’s cell phone revealed calls with Martinez about smuggling.
The surveillance video of the 18-wheeled vehicle passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint showed that the driver matched Zamorano’s description, according to the indictment. A survivor of the trip, a 20-year-old Guatemalan girl, told The Associated Press that the smugglers had covered the floor of the trailer with what she believes was powdered chicken broth, apparently to throw the dogs at the checkpoint. .
The tragedy came at a time when a large number of migrants have arrived in the US, many of them at risk of crossing fast rivers and canals and scorching desert landscapes. Migrants were arrested about 240,000 times in May, a third more than a year ago.
Of the 73 people in the truck, among those who died were people from the Mexican states of Guanajuato, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Mexico, Zacatecas, Querétaro, Morelos and Mexico City. Migrants from Honduras and Guatemala were also among those killed in the deadliest smuggling attempt known in the United States.
In 2017, 10 people died after being trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a suffocating truck in the southeast of the city.