SAN ANTONIO – A tractor-trailer that ended up in San Antonio with more than 50 dead or dying migrants went through federal immigration control in the United States without being inspected, a senior Mexican official said Wednesday.
The truck crossed the checkpoint, operated by the Border Patrol, shortly before 3 p.m. this Monday as it headed north on Interstate 35 from the border region, said Francisco Garduño Yáñez. head of the National Institute of Migrations of Mexico, to a news item. conference that included images of the truck and its driver at the checkpoint.
The Mexican official also said the platform had driven through a Border Patrol station in the town of Cotulla; this station does not operate any highway control.
The truck stopped about three hours later on a desolate road right next to the highway, with people inside, either dead or struggling to stay alive.
A girl managed to get out and ask for help.
“I didn’t know his name or think about asking where he came from,” said Roberto Quintero, who ran into the truck and called 911. “He kept hanging from my arms, shouting,‘ Help ’ m, ajuda’m ‘. in Spanish. “
Authorities said Wednesday that at least 53 of the 64 people inside, men, women and some children coming from countries such as Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, died due to extreme heat inside the truck, which it had no functional cooling. system on a day when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees. Several others were still being treated at local hospitals.
Gov. Greg Abbott, citing the failure of the federal checkpoint to detect people smuggling inside the tractor-trailer, announced that he had ordered the Texas state police to create their own checkpoints to inspect the trucks. He did not say what these inspections would involve or what part of the trucks would stop.
The governor also said Texas police officers would increase searches for homes that hide migrants and so-called cloned vehicles, which are used by smugglers but appear legitimate. Officials have said the San Antonio truck had been disguised in this way.
Federal immigration officials have claimed success in capturing migrants seeking to enter the country illegally and have cited the use of audio and video surveillance and a network of vehicle checkpoints at the border and miles away.
But the fact that a tractor-trailer carrying numerous migrants could evade detection underscored how difficult this ban is, especially amid the seemingly endless flow of truck traffic up and down the commercial corridors linking the United States and Mexico.
A spokeswoman for Homeland Security Investigations declined to comment on how the tractor-trailer, which had Texas license plates, passed smoothly through a federal checkpoint in Encinal, Texas, about 40 miles from the border.
But current and former officials said most drivers pass through without being subjected to a thorough inspection, both because of the legal limits on police searches and the large volume of truck traffic. About 20,000 trucks pass through the Laredo corridor in San Antonio every day.
“We know the vehicles get it,” said Jack Staton, a senior senior executive in National Security Investigations, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, which also includes the Border Patrol.
“They don’t have the staff, resources and capabilities to check every truck,” he said. “They look for if they suspect illegal activity. If they don’t, they let the vehicle go. It makes sure the traffic moves.”
Governor Abbott’s announcement of the new checkpoints comes just over two months after he briefly introduced a similar strategy near international crossings, ordering state police to conduct vehicle security checks on all commercial trucks arriving. of Mexico. Universal truck inspections ruined traffic and caused economic damage in both Mexico and Texas.
State police officers do not have legal permission to conduct universal vehicle inspections for hidden persons or other contraband, areas that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, so officers sought violations of vehicle safety regulations. The effort, in April, caused many unsafe trucks to be off the road, but few or no discoveries of contraband or contraband.
Federal border agents are also limited in the searches they conduct. “They must have suspicion or reason to believe there is illegal activity,” Mr. Staton.
The Border Patrol operates more than 100 checkpoints, most along roads and side roads that are between 25 and 100 miles from the southern and northern borders.
As vehicles approach a checkpoint, officers only ask some of them to stop, and typically ask occupants if they are U.S. citizens or residents to identify potentially deportable people. Officers can walk around stopping vehicles to perform a visual check. If they suspect illegal activity or warn them by sniffer dogs of a possible illicit charge, officers send the vehicles to a secondary inspection.
From fiscal years 2016 to 2020, the Border Patrol detained some 35,700 potentially removable people at checkpoints and carried out some 17,970 seizures of drugs, according to agency data.
Trucks loaded with migrants have been reported to pass through the Encinal checkpoint. Last week, officers began conducting an inspection of a tractor-trailer when the driver attempted to flee. After the impact of the vehicle, dozens of migrants were found crammed inside.
The appearance of the unfortunate truck on Monday in Sant Antoni did not initially draw attention to the industrial area where it had stopped. But soon those inside struggled to get out.
Mr. Quintero was finishing the day at a nearby truck company when around 5:45 p.m., a co-worker came in shouting for someone to call 911. Quintero went out to see the tractor-trailer parked right in front of the company door.
Next to the truck, he saw the 10- or 11-year-old girl sitting on the sidewalk, hitting the ground and screaming for help. The smell coming from the open doors of the truck was powerful. He looked inside.
“All these people were in a pile as if they were trying to get out,” he said in an interview. A man on the other side of the human pile coughed as if he couldn’t breathe and stood up briefly, but seemed too weak to throw himself on the bodies, he said.
A man in a black shirt, whom Mr. Quintero took as a driver, got out of the roadway brush away from the truck talking on his cell phone. Several co-workers of Mr. Quintero was chased, but he disappeared into a field, Mr. Quintero.
San Antonio police said they arrested a man identified as the driver in a field near the truck. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged the man, 45-year-old Homero Zamorano, with a foreign trafficking offense that resulted in his death.
Prosecutors said they matched Mr. Zamorano, a native of the border town of Brownsville, Texas, with a surveillance video of the truck driver passing by a Border Patrol checkpoint. Mr. Zamorano had communicated about the transportation of the migrants with another man, Christian Martínez, 28, according to the prosecution, which accused Mr. Martinez conspiracy to transport illegal aliens to death.
Charges against both men could result in life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Two more truck-related men were charged Tuesday with possession of weapons after being arrested Monday at a San Antonio home. He is also not a legal resident of the United States.
Officials have said smugglers follow a pattern widely used to bring migrants into the country. Small groups cross the river on foot and then are taken to hiding places known as huts. When a large enough number has been gathered, they can be taken by car, van, or large truck to major cities such as San Antonio, Los Angeles, Houston, or Phoenix.
As they move away from the border, detection becomes more difficult.
It was not immediately known where or when the people found inside the truck in San Antonio had boarded. Mexican officials, in their press conference, said the truck could have left from the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas.
“Just because he passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint, that doesn’t mean he was loaded with aliens at the time,” said Jerry Robinette, a former special agent in charge of national security investigations in San Antonio. . “We know it’s very common for aliens to be smuggled through the checkpoint and then marry a transport to take them further north.”
The border with Mexico and the criminal gangs operating around it have been a focus of Republican politicians, even in distant states, who have blamed President Biden for the growing number of people trying to cross.
This month in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the state Supreme Court to incorporate a statewide grand jury to investigate whether families, local governments, and criminal organizations were conspiring to transport migrants to Florida. On Wednesday, the court accepted his request.
In Texas, Mr. Abbott has invested police resources and billions of dollars in state funds to disrupt smuggling networks and has claimed credit for helping detain hundreds of thousands of migrants along with large amounts of drugs. But the effort has not reduced the total number of crossings.
The border town of Eagle Pass, where Mr. Abbott held his press conference on Wednesday, has been a particular focus of the governor’s efforts. For months, concertina wire has lined the banks of the Rio Grande in areas of the city and National Guard troops have been monitoring the coasts.
However, the area around Eagle Pass had become in June the first place in the United States for illegal crossings from Mexico.
Oscar …