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Wednesday 29 June 2022
51 migrants die after trailer abandoned in San Antonio heat

From Front were stopped at a military
checkpoint.
By ERIC GAY, PAUL J. WEBER Of the sixteen people tak-
and ELLIOT SPAGAT en to hospitals Monday
Associated Press with heat-related illnesses,
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Des- five later died. Some were
perate families of migrants in critical condition, ac-
from Mexico and Central cording to the hospitals.
America frantically sought One young woman, was
word of their loved ones unable to speak because
as authorities began the of a tube placed by doc-
grim task Tuesday of iden- tors when he visited her
tifying 51 people who died Monday night, said Anto-
after being abandoned in nio Fernandez, president
a tractor-trailer without air and CEO of Catholic Chari-
conditioning in the swelter- ties in San Antonio.
ing Texas heat. He asked her two ques-
It was the worst tragedy to tions: if he could pray with
claim the lives of migrants her, and if she was from
smuggled across the bor- Guatemala. She nodded
der from Mexico. yes both times.
The driver of the truck and “She was weak,” he said.
two other people were San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg with San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, left, brief media Those taken to the hospital
arrested, U.S. Rep. Henry and others at the scene where they said dozens of people have been found dead and multiple were hot to the touch and
others were taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses after a semitrailer containing suspected
Cuellar of Texas told The As- migrants was found, Monday, June 27, 2022, in San Antonio. dehydrated, and no water
sociated Press. Associated Press was found in the trailer, said
He said the truck had Fire Chief Charles Hood.
passed through a Border ventable tragedy.” least two decades. Mi- up against a busy freeway, “They were suffering from
Patrol checkpoint north- President Joe Biden called grants were stopped nearly Wolff said. “They had just heat stroke and exhaus-
east of Laredo, Texas, on In- the deaths “horrifying and 240,000 times in May, up by parked it on the side of the tion,” Hood said. “It was a
terstate 35. He didn’t know heartbreaking.” one-third from a year ago. road,” he said. refrigerated tractor-trailer,
if migrants were inside the “Exploiting vulnerable indi- Comparisons to pre-pan- San Antonio has been a but there was no visible
truck when it cleared the viduals for profit is shameful, demic levels are compli- recurring scene of tragedy working AC unit on that
checkpoint. as is political grandstanding cated because migrants and desperation in recent rig.”
The bodies were discov- around tragedy, and my expelled under a public years involving migrants in Temperatures in San An-
ered Monday afternoon on administration will continue health authority known as semitrailers. tonio on Monday ap-
the outskirts of San Antonio to do everything possible Title 42 face no legal con- Ten migrants died in 2017 proached 100 degrees
when a city worker heard a to stop human smugglers sequences, encouraging after being trapped inside Fahrenheit (38 degrees
cry for help from the truck and traffickers from tak- repeat attempts. Authori- a truck parked at a San Celsius).
parked on a lonely back ing advantage of people ties say 25% of encounters Antonio Walmart. In 2003, Big rigs emerged as a pop-
road and found the grue- who are seeking to enter in May were with people the bodies of 19 migrants ular smuggling method
some scene inside, Police the United States between who had been stopped at were found in a swelter- in the early 1990s amid a
Chief William McManus ports of entry,” Biden said in least once in the previous ing truck southeast of the surge in U.S. border en-
said. Hours later, body bags a statement. year. city. More than 50 migrants forcement in San Diego
lay spread on the ground. The home countries of all of South Texas has long been were found alive in a trailer and El Paso, Texas.
More than a dozen peo- the migrants and how long the busiest area for ille- in 2018, driven by a man Before that, people paid
ple — their bodies hot to they were abandoned on gal border crossings. U.S. who said he was to be paid small fees to mom-and-
the touch — were taken the side of the road were authorities discover trucks $3,000 and was sentenced pop operators to get them
to hospitals, including four not immediately known. with migrants inside “pretty to more than five years in across a largely unguarded
children. At least 22 were from Mexi- close” to daily, Larrabee prison. border. As crossing be-
Forty-six people were found co, seven from Guatemala said. “These drivers, they take came exponentially more
dead at the scene, authori- and two from Honduras, Migrants typically pay money from the cartels,” difficult after the 2001 terror
ties said. Five more later Roberto Velasco Álvarez, $8,000 to $10,000 to be tak- said state Sen. Roland Guti- attacks in the U.S., migrants
died after being taken to head of the North America en across the border and errez, a Democrat from San were led through more per-
hospitals, said Bexar Coun- department in Mexico’s loaded into a tractor-trailer Antonio. “I’m sure many ilous terrain and had to pay
ty Judge Nelson Wolff, the Foreign Relations Depart- and driven to San Anto- times these trucks end up thousands of dollars more.
county’s top elected offi- ment, said on Twitter. Fami- nio, where they transfer to at their destination suc- Some advocates drew a
cial. Most of the dead were lies were reaching out to smaller vehicles for their fi- cessfully. Unfortunately, this link to the Biden administra-
males, he said. the Mexican Consulate in nal destinations across the has now happened all too tion’s border policies. Aar-
The death count was the San Antonio throughout United States, he said. often.” on Reichlin-Melnick, policy
highest ever from a smug- the morning looking for Conditions vary widely, in- Other incidents have oc- director at the American
gling incident in the United their loved ones, an em- cluding how much water curred long before mi- Immigration Council, wrote
States, according to Craig ployee there said. passengers get and wheth- grants reached the U.S. that he had been dreading
Larrabee, acting special Attempts to cross the U.S. er they are allowed to carry border. In December, more such a tragedy for months.
agent in charge of Home- border from Mexico have cellphones, Larrabee said. than 50 died when a semi- “With the border shut as
land Security Investigations claimed thousands of lives Authorities think the truck trailer filled with migrants tightly as it is today for mi-
in San Antonio. in both countries in recent discovered Monday had rolled over on a highway in grants from Mexico, Guate-
“This is a horror that surpass- decades. mechanical problems southern Mexico. In Octo- mala, Honduras and El Sal-
es anything we’ve expe- U.S. border authorities are when it was left next to a ber, Mexican authorities re- vador, people have been
rienced before,” said San stopping migrants more railroad track in an area of ported finding 652 migrants pushed into more and
Antonio Mayor Ron Niren- often on the southern bor- San Antonio surrounded by packed into six trailers more dangerous routes,”
berg. “And it’s sadly a pre- der than at any time in at auto scrapyards that brush near the U.S. border. They he wrote on Twitter.q