Texas sheriff says 7 suspects arrested, 11 migrants hospitalized after attack near San Antonio – 104.5 WOKV

Lina Portman4 weeks ago

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SAN ANTONIO — (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.

The condition of the hospitalized migrants was not immediately known, but Salazar said: “We believe everyone is out of the woods, to the point of losing their lives.”

The clandestine attack came two days after President Joe Biden unveiled plans to immediately impose significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the White House attempts to neutralize immigration by as political responsibility before the November elections.

San Antonio was the scene of the nation's deadliest human trafficking episode in June 2022. Fifty-three migrants, including eight children, died after being trapped in a choking semi-trailer that had been driven from the border town 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.

He blamed the operation on Mexican cartels and noted that body armor 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.”