SMUGGLING OPERATION UNCOVERED! Seven Charged for Endangering 26 Migrants in Southern Texas

Seven persons have been prosecuted in southern Texas for endangering over two dozen migrants who were secreted in a secret trailer compartment under high temperatures and with minimal water, according to officials. One individual remained hospitalized on Friday.

Following a tip about a smuggling operation, Bexar County Sheriff’s Office investigators discovered 26 migrants Thursday morning in a home near San Antonio that Sheriff Javier Salazar described as a “shack” with holes in the floor and no water.

Salazar said he didn’t know when the migrants crossed the border, but he assumed they were driven there from Laredo, approximately 160 miles (260 kilometers) away. Salazar said the migrants had been in the trailer’s concealed compartment for three hours. The National Weather Service reported that temperatures in San Antonio were in the high 90s Thursday afternoon and were predicted to reach 100 degrees.

Seven men, aged 21 to 45, were arrested and charged with state felonies such as human smuggling, engaging in organized criminal activity, maintaining a stash house, and fleeing arrest.

Twelve people were initially sent to the hospital for minor and heat-related ailments, but just one migrant stayed there on Friday due to dehydration and “cardiac-related issues,” according to a news release.

The smuggled individuals were from Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, and Guatemala, and their ages ranged from 18 to 54. Six of them were women.

San Antonio was the site of the country’s deadliest human smuggling episode in June 2022, when 53 migrants, including eight children, died after being locked in a scorching semi-trailer transported from Laredo.

The air conditioning unit in that trailer was not working properly. When officials discovered it on a lonely San Antonio road, 48 migrants had already died, with five more dying later in hospitals.