AUSTIN, Texas — Dozens of migrants were found dead by law enforcement inside a tractor-trailer.
Officials confirmed a total of 46 bodies were found in the back of a commercial truck parked roughly 3 miles southwest of downtown San Antonio, roughly an hour’s drive south of Austin, according to My San Antonio.
Fire Chief Charles Hood said a further 16 people, 12 adults and four children, were transported to local hospitals suffering from heat-related injuries.
“Patients that we saw were hot to the touch,” Hood said, according to the outlet, adding that he did not know how long the people had been in the trailer.
Police Chief William McManus said three people are in custody but that it is unclear whether they are connected to the incident.
The investigation has now been turned over to the Department of Homeland Security.
The people who died in the tractor-trailer are migrants who are believed to have been transported as part of a human smuggling operation, according to multiple law enforcement agencies, per Fox News.
THE WEEK REPUBLICANS GOT SERIOUS ABOUT THE BORDER
In 2019, a Washington Examiner investigation found that tractor-trailer smuggling incidents were on the rise, suggesting smugglers are increasingly relying on the practice to move people throughout the country after they elude capture at the Mexican border.
Since the start of the government fiscal year, agents have found and rescued more than 3,000 people packed inside commercial trucks, often without air conditioning or water
Most rescues are happening at Border Patrol-operated highway checkpoints set up 20 to 100 miles north of the border. The intent of the checkpoints is to seize drugs, contraband, and people who made it past agents on the actual border and are now being moved further into the country.
In 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said a trailer carrying 31 people between ages 15 and 40 was discovered at one such checkpoint near Amado, Arizona. Agents at the inspection stations use a large drive-thru X-ray machine to scan the truck without opening it. They will open the back if the scan reveals that people or suspicious items are inside, and adults will be arrested.
A Kentucky man, James Matthew Bradley Jr., was sentenced in April 2018 to life in federal prison for transporting dozens of illegal immigrants in a scorching hot tractor-trailer, after which 10 people were found dead inside.
Shortly after midnight on July 23, 2017, San Antonio police responded to a call from a Walmart on Interstate 35 and found the tractor-trailer behind the store. Police found Bradley asleep in the cab and 39 illegal immigrants in a trailer that did not have a working air conditioning unit.
Of the 39 people found in the truck, eight were found deceased and two later died from injuries sustained from being in the overheated trailer for a prolonged period. About 20 people were in serious condition, and eight others who were diagnosed at the scene with heat stroke and dehydration were taken to local hospitals for treatment. Four of the 39 people were between the ages of 14 and 17, and they were not accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Bradley claimed he did not know there were as many as 40 illegal immigrants in the trailer and only made the discovery when he exited the truck to use the restroom.
Walmart video surveillance showed the truck driver getting people out of the truck and exchanging them to vehicles that would pull up. Between 70 and 200 illegal immigrants are believed to have boarded the truck, with groups being released at different spots.
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Some of the victims later told federal agents how they illegally crossed the Rio Grande River in Texas and were able to enter the country. The individual groups of illegal immigrants were brought together from stash houses they had been living in in border towns and loaded on the trailer.
In his October court appearance, Bradley admitted to transporting the group from the Texas-Mexico border further into the U.S. for financial gain.
