San Antonio: 7 suspects arrested, 11 migrants hospitalized after attack, according to Texas sheriff

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Eleven people were hospitalized and seven smuggling suspects were arrested Thursday after authorities found more than two dozen migrants driven from the border crammed into a secret compartment of a trailer with few resources. water and in stifling heat.

Following a tip about a smuggling operation, authorities followed the trailer as it was towed to a rural residence outside San Antonio, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said.

A total of 26 migrants were found in the residence that Salazar described as a “shack” with holes in the ground and no water. Of those, 11 were taken to the hospital for minor or heat-related injuries, Salazar said.

The migrants had been in the caravan's secret compartment for three hours, Salazar said. Temperatures in San Antonio were in the 90s Thursday afternoon and were expected to exceed 100, according to the National Weather Service.

No specific information was released on the condition of the hospitalized migrants, but Salazar said: “We believe everyone is out of the woods, to the point of losing their lives. »

The smuggling attack occurred two days later President Joe Biden unveiled plans to enact significant and immediate restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the White House attempts to neutralize immigration as a political liability before the November elections.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been fighting the Biden administration for years over its immigration policies. Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, a multibillion-dollar border security effort that led to court battles with the federal government over river buoys and barbed wire to prevent migrants from crossing the Rio Grande, as well than other border-related measures. Texas has also bused tens of thousands of migrants to Democratic-run cities across the United States.

San Antonio was the site of the nation the deadliest episode of human trafficking in June 2022. Fifty-three migrants, including eight children, died after being trapped in a sweltering semitrailer that was coming from the border city of Laredo. The caravan had a faulty air conditioning system. When authorities discovered it on a remote San Antonio road, 48 migrants were already dead and five more died later in hospitals. The dead migrants came from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

All of the migrants found Thursday appeared to be adults, Salazar said. The nationalities of most of them were not immediately known, but one woman told authorities she was from Guatemala and had paid $16,000 to be brought to the United States.

Salazar said he did not know when the migrants crossed the border, but believed they were driven to the area from Laredo, about 160 miles away.

Salazar blamed Mexican cartels for the breakdown of the operation Thursday, and noted that bulletproof vests and rifles were found on the property. Some of those found at the residence ran, but authorities believed they had arrested everyone involved.

“Clearly linked to the cartel,” Salazar said. “It’s the fault of the bloodthirsty organizations that send them across and put them in danger.”

Salazar noted how well-hidden the migrants were during their movement.

“You could be standing right next to it and not know that this thing has 26 people in it,” Salazar said. “They’re hiding in plain sight.”

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Associated Press reporter Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.