Mexican authorities began a trial Friday against six alleged human smugglers involved in the deaths of more than 53 migrants who were packed into a Texas trailer and suffocated in June 2022.
The Attorney General's Office (FGR) reported in a statement that the six defendants were involved in the death of dozens of migrants, including women and children, who were found inside a truck in the vicinity of Quintana Road, San Antonio, Texas. , on June 27, 2022.
【“On Monday morning I spoke to her. She said that she was doing well ”: the mother of a young Honduran woman who died in the Texas truck speaks]
The suspects were identified as Melesio 'B', Hermelindo 'B', Adrian 'B', Yoana 'N', Sheyla 'B' and Jessica 'P'.
According to court documents, they were accused of "probable responsibility in the crime of aggravated human trafficking."
The federal judge forced them to remain detained while their case is carried out, alleging flight risk and due to the seriousness of the contested crimes.
Police and other first responders work at the scene where dozens of people were found dead and many others were taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses, Monday, June 27, 2022, in San Antonio.Eric Gay / AP
On June 27, 2022, 85 migrants were discovered traveling crowded inside the box of a trailer, 53 of whom had already died.
Among the fatalities there were 26 Mexicans, seven Guatemalans and 14 Hondurans, who were traveling in the truck without ventilation and under high temperatures.
Three days after the tragedy, the federal authorities of Mexico opened an investigation folder for the death of the Mexican migrants, while Central American countries, such as Guatemala, later joined a joint investigation.
The find was called the deadliest human smuggling tragedy in US history.
Those accused in the 'truck of death' case face life in prison or the death penalty
July 21, 202200:23
Fiscal year 2022, which ended last October, saw a record in the irregular migratory flow, with more than 2.76 million encounters with undocumented people on the United States border with Mexico, the EFE news agency reported.
According to what one of the survivors told the Archbishop of San Antonio, Texas, Gustavo García-Siller, in his last moments, the migrants all turned towards the center of the vehicle in a prayer, "trusting God and giving up their lives."
[Death in Texas Trailer: The Stories of the Migrants Who Risked Everything to Get to the US]
“It was a very dramatic situation, very desperate.
And it is very easy to imagine a closed truck [...] It is a box without protection in terms of weather, whether it is hot or cold.
No window.
No water.
Not food.
They had to do their physical needs there [...] it's a horrible thing," the priest recounted during an interview with Noticias Telemundo in July 2022.
The smuggling of migrants across the border from Mexico to the United States is an illegal business that often ends in the death of migrants seeking better living conditions.
The bodies of the six Hondurans found dead in the "truck of death" arrive in their country
July 23, 202201:39
The group that was abandoned by the driver in San Antonio were traveling without food or water in extreme heat and covered in meat seasoning to outwit police dogs.
In a trailer he was on the road for at least four hours, between Laredo and San Antonio, without the driver knowing that the air conditioning had failed.
He ran into two Border Patrol checkpoints, but the agents let him through.
Three hours after going through the last control, a neighbor found the trailer, with dozens of deceased inside.
