SAN ANTONIO – The bodies of at least 46 people believed to be migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico were found dead Monday in and around a tractor-trailer that had been abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio, said state and municipal officials. .
At least 16 more, including children, were taken alive to local hospitals but suffering from heat exhaustion and apparent dehydration, city officials said during a press conference at the scene of what appeared to be one of the worst episodes of death of migrants in the United States. in recent years.
“The plight of migrants seeking refuge is always a humanitarian crisis,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg told reporters Monday afternoon. “But tonight we are facing a horrible human tragedy.”
San Antonio Police Department Chief William McManus said three people had been arrested. Earlier in the day, officers had been searching for the driver of the vehicle, who appeared to have abandoned the truck before being spotted in a remote area near train tracks and car rescue yards southwest of downtown. the city. Chief McManus did not say whether the driver was among the detainees.
The truck was discovered by a worker at a nearby business who “heard a scream for help and went out to investigate,” Chief McManus said, adding that the worker had found the trailer doors partially open and went find a series of bodies inside.
Most of the bodies, which included men and women, were found inside the truck around 6 p.m., although at least one was outside the vehicle. Fire chief Charles Hood said people who were transported to hospitals were “hot to the touch” and appeared to be suffering “a heat stroke, heat exhaustion”. The truck, although designed to be refrigerated, “had no visible air conditioning unit in operation,” he said.
Texas state officials, who already manage record levels of migrant crossings from Mexico, are gearing up for a further increase this spring and summer. All of the victims are believed to have crossed into the United States illegally and were taken north. The nearest border crossing is about 140 miles away.
“The plight of migrants seeking refuge is always a humanitarian crisis,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. Credit … Eric Gay / Associated Press
“These deaths are in Biden,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a brief statement on Twitter. “They are the result of their deadly open-border policies. They show the deadly consequences of their refusal to enforce the law.”
Officials did not say how people had died, but suggested that extreme heat had been the cause. San Antonio and other Texas cities have experienced heat in June that reaches record levels or near. The temperature in the city on Monday had exceeded 100 degrees.
“Imagine being abandoned inside an 18-wheeled vehicle left to die,” Representative Tony Gonzales, whose congressional district stretches from the outskirts of San Antonio to the border, wrote on Twitter. “@AliMayorkas will even mention their names?” he added, referring to Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of national security.
A Texas state police spokesman referred questions to the San Antonio police department, which did not respond to requests for comment. The Department of Homeland Security was expected to take over the investigation.
The federal agency said in a statement that it was working with state and local authorities to investigate the deaths. Officers from National Security Investigations, a unit that specializes in smuggling, were collecting evidence inside the trailer, officials said.
San Antonio is a major transit point for migrants moving from Texas to places in the United States. Tens of thousands of migrants have passed through the city in recent months, according to immigrant advocates.
For more than a year, Mr. Abbott has invested billions of dollars in state funding to increase the presence of Texas state police and National Guard soldiers at the border. But the effort has been unable to stop the flow of migrants crossing from Mexico to seek asylum or, in other cases, to evade authorities and enter the country illegally.
Monday before, Mr. Abbott had been promoting his government’s efforts on Twitter, posting statistics on the number of migrants detained. The office of Mr. Abbott did not immediately comment on the deaths near San Antonio before the governor returned to Twitter to confirm the deaths and attack President Biden, a Democrat, whom Mr. Abbott has wanted to blame for the large number of migrants arriving.
Ruby Chavez, 53, a housewife who lives a mile away from where the truck was found, knew how to talk about the discovery on television, and then saw a helicopter moving overhead. She came to the scene with her husband, Reuben, to pray.
Ruby and Ruben Chavez, in the center, went to the scene to pray on Monday. Credit … Lisa Krantz for The New York Times
The area was a location known to locals as a “drop-off point” for migrants, the couple said.
“You could say they just arrived. We see them with backpacks or asking for food or money,” Ms. Chavez said. And now I hear that there are children. “
Her husband added, “They know this area. They jump off the train and pick them up.”
Dozens of police officers and firefighters gathered around the scene along Quintana Road, where the truck was found, a road between train tracks and car rescue yards that has a rural feel despite be within the city limits. There are several farms nearby.
In recent days, law enforcement officials along the border and in nearby counties have expressed concern about the number of migrants arriving in Texas, which has long been one of the busiest borders for migrant traffic. Federal officials have recorded a record number of illegal crossings on the southern border during this time of year, with more than 44,000 recorded last month in the area around Del Rio and Eagle Pass, the border city alone. closer to San Antonio.
Traffickers often transport large numbers of migrants in trailers, vans, or SUVs after encountering them in remote areas once they have managed to enter the United States.
One of the deadliest smuggling cases occurred in 2003, when sheriff’s agents discovered the bodies of 17 migrants, including a 7-year-old boy, in an overheated trailer in Victoria, a South Texas city. . When officials located the trailer at a truck stop, they discovered that migrants trapped inside had tried to drill air holes so they could breathe. Another migrant later died in a hospital.
In 2017, 10 men died in San Antonio after riding in a tractor-trailer full of up to 200 migrants who for hours had no food, water or fresh air. About 30 more people were hospitalized, and the driver was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the smuggling operation.
Clashes near the border are also common, sometimes during law enforcement chases.
In 2012, a Ford van full of more than 20 undocumented migrants hit two trees in South Texas and killed 15 people. In March 2021, 13 people died in a remote stretch of Southern California when a crowded Ford Expedition got in the way of a tractor-trailer. And last August, at least 10 people died and 20 more were injured after a van crashed in South Texas.
A memorial at the site of the death of 13 migrants when an SUV and a tractor-trailer collided near Holtville, California, in 2021. Credit … Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
In May, officers detained more than 239,000 migrants along the border, a record high, including people who had already tried to enter earlier. The United States has pursued a public health emergency policy, known as Title 42, which has resulted in approximately half of migrants being returned to Mexico or returned to their countries of origin.
However, an increasing number of migrants from India, Russia, Senegal and elsewhere cannot be eliminated quickly because their countries will not accept them and will be allowed to enter the United States. At the border, they are placed in deportation proceedings and receive notices to appear in court or report to the inland immigration authorities.
“This horrible tragedy is a reminder that we need a safe and orderly way for people to seek asylum,” Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio said. “The continued use of Title 42 has made desperate people even more desperate.”
The policy has also given migrants an incentive to make repeated attempts to cross the border if they fail in the first attempt, immigration analysts say, a factor in the increase in the number of crossings over the past year.
In addition to the single adults who often make these crossings, thousands of families and children have arrived daily from Central America, driven by violence, natural disasters and the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
There has also been an increase in the number of single adults from Mexico and Central America seeking entry into the United States, often following treacherous routes to evade detection by authorities.
It was unclear where the people they met on Monday came from.
Miriam Jordan and Eliza Fawcett contributed to the report.