EAGLE PASS, Texas — Maverick County Sheriff's deputies responded to a resident's call reporting something banging from an abandoned trailer on the outskirts of the city early Wednesday morning. Upon arrival, deputies found 26 migrants trapped inside the abandoned trailer and gasping for breath. The migrants had been placed into the trailer by an unknown individual who fled the scene prior to law enforcement arrival.
Sheriff Tom Schmerber told Breitbart that interviews in Texas at the time of the rescue revealed that the migrants had been brought into the trailer in small groups for the long journey to San Antonio, in Eagle Pass, 157 miles southwest of the city. The temperature outside the trailer at the time of the discovery was just above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
The trailer park is about three miles from the Mexico-US border. After spending so much time trapped inside the trailers, the migrants began banging on the walls and screaming for help, Schmerber said.
Several of the migrants were taken to local hospitals for treatment, where they were subsequently treated and turned over to the Border Patrol. Authorities say the migrants are from Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Central America. Sheriff Schmerber said the migrants were turned over to the US Border Patrol and the case will be investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
The incident is reminiscent of a tragic incident that took the lives of 53 migrants in San Antonio, Texas in June 2022. In this human smuggling incident, 65 migrants were found inside a large trailer after smugglers abandoned the vehicle near an industrial park outside the city. At the time of discovery, 48 migrants were found dead inside the trailer in the extreme heat. Within days of the incident, five migrants died at a local medical facility.
So far, four suspects have pleaded guilty in what is one of the worst human trafficking cases in the U.S. Guatemalan national Rigoberto Ramon Miranda Orozco was arrested in August in connection with a trafficking operation in San Antonio, Guatemala. The Department of Justice announced his arrest. Miranda was arrested following the conclusion of a joint enforcement operation with Guatemalan authorities and is accused of smuggling 21 Guatemalan nationals in the deadly incident, which occurred in 2022. 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.
