'Stacks of bodies': 46 dead migrants found in truck in Texas
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[June 28, 2022]
By Kaylee Greenlee Beal, Kristina Cooke and Mica Rosenberg
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) -The bodies of 46
dead migrants were discovered inside a tractor-trailer on Monday in San
Antonio, Texas, city officials said, in one of the most deadly recent
incidents of human smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border.
A San Antonio Fire Department official said they found "stacks of
bodies" and no signs of water in the truck, which was found next to
railroad tracks in a remote area on the city's southern outskirts.
Sixteen other people found inside the trailer were transported to
hospitals for heat stroke and exhaustion, including four minors, but no
children were among the dead, the department said.
"The patients that we saw were hot to the touch, they were suffering
from heat stroke, exhaustion," San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told
a news conference. "It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer but there was
no visible working A/C unit on that rig."
Temperatures in San Antonio, which is about 160 miles (250 km) from the
Mexican border, swelled to a high of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4
degrees Celsius) on Monday with high humidity.
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The city's Police Chief William McManus said a person who works in a
nearby building heard a cry for help and came out to investigate. The
worker found the trailer doors partially opened and looked inside and
found a number of dead bodies.
McManus said this was the largest incident of its kind in the city and
said three people were in custody following the incident, though their
involvement is not yet clear.
A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said
that its Homeland Security Investigations division was investigating "an
alleged human smuggling event" in coordination with local police.
RECORD CROSSINGS
The deaths once again highlight the challenge of controlling migrant
crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, which have reached record highs.
The issue has proven difficult for U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat
who came into office in January 2021 pledging to reverse some of the
hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor Donald
Trump. Republicans have criticized Biden's border strategy ahead of the
midterm congressional elections in November.
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![](../images/062822PIX/news_j21.jpg)
Christine and Michael Ybarra embrace at the scene where people were
found dead inside a trailer truck in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. June
27, 2022. REUTERS/Kaylee Greenlee Beal
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Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the
suffocation of the migrants in the truck the "tragedy in Texas" on
Twitter and said consular officials would go to the hospitals where
victims had been taken to help "however possible."
A spokesman for the Honduran foreign ministry told Reuters the
country's consulates in Houston and Dallas would be investigating
the incident. Ebrard said two Guatemalans were hospitalized and
Guatemala's foreign ministry said on Twitter that consular officials
were going to the hospital "to verify if there are two Guatemalan
minors there and what condition they are in."
The I-35 highway near where the truck was found runs through San
Antonio from the Mexican border and is a popular smuggling corridor
because of the large volume of truck traffic, according to Jack
Staton, a former senior official with ICE's investigative unit who
retired in December.
In July 2017, 10 migrants died after being transported in a
tractor-trailer that was discovered by San Antonio police in a
Wal-Mart parking lot. The driver, James Matthew Bradley, Jr., was
sentenced the following year to life in prison for his role in the
smuggling operation.
Staton said migrants have regularly been intercepted in the area
since the 2017 incident. "It was only a matter of time before a
tragedy like this was going to happen again," he said.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson, Kaylee Greenlee Beal, Rami Ayyub, Eric
Beech and Costas Pitas; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and
Kylie Madry in Mexico City, Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and
Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing
by Sandra Maler and Christian Schmollinger)
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