The migrants found this week inside a tractor-trailer in Texas were already in the vehicle when it passed through a Border Patrol highway checkpoint before arriving in San Antonio, where dozens of them were found dead, a US federal official said Thursday.
The vehicle passed through the checkpoint on Interstate 35 located 26 miles (42 kilometers) northeast of the border city of Laredo, Texas.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on an ongoing investigation, said there were 73 people in the truck when it was discovered Monday in San Antonio, including 53 who died. It was not clear if the agents stopped the driver for questioning at the checkpoint or if the truck passed safely.
The revelation draws attention to a long-standing policy question of whether the roughly 110 highway checkpoints within the country along the Mexican and Canadian borders are effective enough to detect people entering the United States illegally in vehicles. They are generally located within 160 kilometers (100 miles) of the border.
For its part, the Texas State Police announced that it will operate its own truck checkpoints by order of Governor Greg Abbott, who considers that the efforts of the government of President Joe Biden in this regard are insufficient. It is unknown how many trucks will be stopped for review.
That same Thursday, Homero Zamorano Jr., 45, the alleged driver of the truck, made his initial appearance in federal court in San Antonio. During a hearing that lasted about five minutes, Zamorano, dressed in a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, said very little, giving “yes” and “no” answers to questions from Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney about your rights and the charges you face.
The judge appointed a public defender for Zamorano and also a second lawyer, since the smuggling charge against him carries a possible death sentence. She scheduled a hearing for next week to determine if he is eligible for bail.
It remains unclear how long the migrants were in the truck and whether the fact that the smugglers took their cellphones before they entered the vehicle contributed to the extremely high death toll. In this case, there is no record of emergency calls from trapped migrants, something that has happened in previous incidents.
José Santos Bueso, from the city of El Progreso, Honduras, indicated on Thursday that his daughter Jazmín Nayarith Bueso Núñez, 37, told him in their last conversation that she was in Laredo, that the smugglers were going to take away their phones and that they could communicate with him for some time. The woman sent her 15-year-old son a final text message around noon Monday, telling her they were about to head to San Antonio and she wouldn’t be able to get in touch.
The US Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that Border Patrol agents could stop vehicles at checkpoints for brief questioning without a warrant, even if there was no reason to believe they were transporting people who entered the country illegally. However, immigrant and civil rights advocates believe the checkpoints lend themselves to racial profiling and abuse of authority. Some motorists post videos on social media accusing officers of harsh and inappropriate questioning.
The checkpoint in the Laredo area is one of the busiest on the southern border, especially by trucks, raising the possibility of disrupting commerce if every motorist is stopped and questioned.
Border Patrol officials say the checkpoints are imperfect but represent an effective second line of defense after the border, acknowledging that agents must balance policing with avoiding obstructing legitimate trade and travel.
The volume and configuration vary widely between checkpoints, but agents generally have 5 to 7 seconds to decide whether to question a driver, said Roy Villareal, a former chief of Border Patrol in the Tucson sector of Arizona.
“Ultimately it is very difficult to make a determination with crime in general. It’s hard to say if you’re 100% effective, or 50%, or 10%,” he said.
U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, who passes through the aforementioned checkpoint nearly every week, said investigators believe the migrants boarded the truck in or around Laredo, although that has not been confirmed. That would match patterns of human smuggling: Migrants cross the border on foot, hiding in a house or in the bush on US soil, then being picked up and taken to the nearest big city.
Even if the truck were empty, it would raise questions about the checkpoints. Migrants often die trying to evade them, getting off trucks before reaching them with plans to be picked up later. In the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, migrants walk in sweltering heat to avoid the checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of the border.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported this month that agents at checkpoints detained some 35,700 people believed to be living in the United States illegally between fiscal years 2016 and 2020, just 2 % of all Border Patrol arrests. Agents seized drugs nearly 18,000 times during that period, and more than 9 out of 10 arrests involved US citizens.
Abbott did not provide details on the scope of the new inspections announced Thursday. Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said officers will take a “stronger stance.” Asked if that means stopping every truck, Olivarez said he doesn’t know, and that it will depend in part on how many personnel are available.
“It will consist of carrying out more inspections than we usually do,” he said.
In April, Abbott brought a week-long paralysis to the Texas border after issuing orders that law enforcement officers inspect every tractor-trailer coming in from Mexico as part of his dispute with the Biden administration over policies to control immigration. In these inspections, which were mechanical and security, no immigrant or drugs were detected.