A tragic loss of life occurred after 51 people died while several others were injured and hospitalized on Tuesday after an abandoned tractor-trailer was found in San Antonio amid blazing heat, marking the deadliest smuggling attempt in U.S. history.
In a statement during a news conference on Tuesday, Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores said the death toll went from 46 to 51. Authorities initially discovered 46 people dead inside the trailer on Monday and 16 others were hospitalized. However, some of the victims being treated lost their lives due to the severity of their injuries.
Deadliest Smuggling Attempt in US History
The driver of the truck and two other people have been arrested, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. The official added that the vehicle passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint northeast of Laredo, Texas, on Interstate 35.
Cuellar said that he did not know if migrants were inside the truck at the time that it cleared the checkpoint. On the other hand, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said that the victims had "families who were likely trying to find a better life," as per USA Today.
The death toll of the incident was the highest ever recorded from a smuggling incident in the United States, based on Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.
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The trek that migrants face in order to cross the southern U.S. border is inherently dangerous and hundreds of deaths are reported every year. Smuggling is one of many ways that migrants use to make their way into the United States.
According to the Associated Press, investigators were able to trace the truck's registration to a residence in San Antonio and detained two men from Mexico for possession of weapons, according to criminal complaints filed by the U.S. attorney's office. But the complaints did not make any specific allegations related to the deaths.
A Surge of Migrants in the US
Authorities discovered the bodies on Monday afternoon on the outskirts of San Antonio when a city worker heard a cry for help from the truck that was parked on a lonely back road. Police Chief William McManus said that officers then found a gruesome inside, with body bags being spread on the ground hours later.
"This is a horror that surpasses anything we've experienced before. And it's sadly a preventable tragedy," said Nirenberg. In a statement, United States President Joe Biden said that exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit was shameful and promised that his administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers.
Larrabee said that in the past, smuggling organizations were mom and pop but have since become an organized coalition tied in with the cartels. He noted that it was a criminal organization that had no regard for the safety of the migrants, treating them more like commodities rather than human beings.
The discovery of the dead bodies came as U.S. federal authorities launched what they described as an "unprecedented" operation to disrupt human smuggling networks amid a rise of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN reported.
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