The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The trailer of the Texas tragedy passed through two security checkpoints in the US without the migrants being detected

2022-06-29T18:14:47.248Z


The authorities reveal new advances in the investigation to find those responsible and raise the figure to 53 deceased


Police officers and first responders stand next to the trailer in which 52 migrants died, in San Antonio, United States, on June 27, 2022. Eric Gay (AP)

Authorities have released new revelations about the alerts that failed to prevent the Texas tragedy.

The trailer that abandoned 67 migrants in San Antonio passed through two security checkpoints in the United States without noticing that dozens of people were traveling hidden in the box.

This was revealed by the director of the National Institute of Migration of Mexico, Francisco Garduño, at a press conference this Wednesday.

Governments on both sides of the border have added that there are three suspects in custody: one American and two Mexicans.

While the identification of the dead and wounded progresses, the death toll has risen to 53 deaths, after two more people died who were hospitalized in clinics in the area,

Three out of four migrants who died were men.

The greatest migratory tragedy in memory on US soil has claimed the lives of 40 men and 13 women, local authorities have indicated in a statement.

The reconnaissance work, in the absence of corroborating nationalities through fingerprints, has been able to determine that at least 27 Mexicans died, as well as 14 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and two Salvadorans, according to preliminary figures presented. by the Government of Mexico.

It is expected that in the coming days all the victims can be identified with data from the forensic service and the national population registers of the countries of origin: so far the identities of 37 people have been confirmed.

There are still 14 people hospitalized in six hospitals, receiving care after presenting symptoms of extreme dehydration, hemorrhages, and kidney, liver, and neurological failure.

As of Tuesday afternoon, most were reported in serious condition.

It is known that among the survivors there are at least three Mexicans and one Guatemalan citizen, but the nationality of the two people who died after being taken to the clinics is still unknown.

The last report presented by the Mexican Government allows us to reconstruct the last hours in the timeline of the tragedy.

The trailer drove on Highway 35, which crosses Texas from the border with Mexico to the metropolises in the north of the State, for more than 235 kilometers, before reaching the point where it was abandoned, 50 kilometers from San Antonio.

The truck passed the first inspection point of the border patrol (CBP) at 2:50 p.m. on Monday in Encinal, a small town 56 kilometers from the border with the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

Security cameras captured the driver, who was wearing a black cap and striped shirt.

It is the last image of the truck before the tragedy.

About 50 kilometers later, he was detained once again at a CBP checkpoint in the community of Cotulla.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus confirmed Wednesday that one of the three arrested is the driver of the truck.

The man, identified as Homero N (his last name has not been made public while the investigations progress), tried to flee on foot after leaving the migrants to their fate and posed as one of the survivors, according to the count of the authorities of both countries.

The other two arrests occurred when the Police entered a home in San Antonio, where the trailer was registered.

They are two men of Mexican nationality in an irregular situation.

Both are under federal arrest accused, at the moment, of possession of weapons.

“In the records of the National Migration Institute, no data was found on the person accused of driving the trailer.

The truck, a 1995 red Volvo, was registered to a San Antonio company and appeared to be just another vehicle in their fleet.

The owners of the company, Betancourt Trucking and Harvesting, pointed out in the local press that, however, the trailer had been "cloned" and did not belong to their company.

That is one of the strongest hypotheses to explain how the driver was able to avoid the checkpoints.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said a few hours after the discovery that the US plates were overlapping and presumably fake.

The Texan authorities confirmed that "cloned vehicles are common in this area."

"We have served FedEx and UPS drivers who say their magnetic tags are being stolen," said Eusebio Salinas,

The former director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service during the Trump administration, Tom Homan, pointed out that in recent times the mafias had intensified the format of migrant trafficking through large trailers.

“For a year I have been warning that such a tragedy was going to happen due to the increase in truck smuggling,” he told a local media outlet.

In the last month, police intercepted another truck with 88 people hiding inside a truck in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

And in May, two men were arrested near the Texas border for packing another 124 migrants into a trailer.

Last December, 57 migrants died after a vehicle overturned in the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala.

Border control has been one of the open fronts of the Joe Biden Administration, but the tragedy has given rise to two diametrically opposed readings.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and members of the Republican Party blame Biden directly, blaming the porosity of the border and his "open door policy" for what happened.

Immigrant advocacy organizations and Democratic politicians argue that what happened is an example of the desperation and the risks that those who undertake the journey to a country that has closed its doors to asylum seekers for more than two years have to take.

In the background are the elections next November to renew a third of the Senate.

The authorities of the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras are in permanent coordination to advance in the identification of the victims, provide support to the families and advance with the investigations.

So far, the names of those affected have not been made public.

The authorities are still trying to establish the point of origin of the truck and if crimes were committed on the way to central Texas, another of the unknowns that prevail in a tragedy that has mourned five countries.

subscribe here

to the

newsletter

of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current affairs of this country

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-06-29

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-01T15:34:47.587Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.