Texas Department of Public Safety troopers found 17 migrants hiding inside a cloned tractor-trailer as they headed away from the border in rural southwest Texas, a scare that may have saved the lives of passengers as temperatures soared to nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday.
The truck, which bore false markings for the popular home improvement chain Lowe's, was being driven by a Mississippi man who now faces felony charges for endangering immigrants.
According to a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson, deputies encountered a cloned Lowe's semi-tractor trailer in Kinney County near Brackettville, Texas. When they stopped the vehicle, they found 13 adult males and four adult female migrants inside. Deputies reported that several of the male and female migrants were sweaty, dehydrated and had numb legs because they had been crammed into a three-foot-wide space inside the trailer.
#video: Translator Mississippi driver arrested after discovering 17 illegal immigrants smuggled in fake vehicle
8/30: A TXDPS officer stopped a Lowe's box truck on US-277 in Kinney County.
During the traffic stop, the driver, Megel Kazanna Patterson of Mississippi, agreed to … https://t.co/mJ4oEyFhGr pic.twitter.com/guqbTzCqjr
— Chris Olivarez (@LtChrisOlivarez) August 31, 2024
The agency noted that some of the migrants required medical treatment, and the driver of the vehicle is likely to face more severe penalties for human smuggling based on the method of transportation and injuries sustained during the smuggling.
The incident is reminiscent of the tragic incident in San Antonio, Texas in June 2022 that claimed the lives of 53 migrants.
In this trafficking case, 65 migrants were found inside a lorry after smugglers abandoned the vehicle near an industrial park outside the city. When discovered, 48 migrants were found dead inside the trailer in the extreme heat. Five migrants died in a local medical facility within days of the incident.
Four suspects have pleaded guilty so far to their involvement in the worst human trafficking case in U.S. history: Rigoberto Ramon Miranda Orozco, a Guatemalan national, was arrested last week in connection with a trafficking operation in San Antonio, Guatemala. of The Department of Justice announced his arrest. The conclusion of a joint enforcement operation with Guatemalan authorities led to the arrest of Miranda, who is suspected of smuggling 21 Guatemalan nationals into the deadly 2022 event. Miranda allegedly charged some of his victims between $12,000 and $15,000 to smuggle the migrants into the United States.
Randy Clark Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as Chief of the Law Enforcement Operations Division, where he led operations for nine Border Patrol stations in the Del Rio Sector, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
