Eleven people have been charged in the deaths of seven migrants who were locked inside a train container in Texas heat in May, U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas said when the indictment was announced on a Friday in late July.
“In that kind of heat, it’s May in Texas, ultimately it’s very hard to survive in an un-air conditioned, sealed container,” Simmons said.
The journey
According to Simmons, the migrants boarded the train in Del Rio, intending to reach San Antonio. When smugglers opened the door there, a man fell out. The smugglers shut the door again and fled. Laredo Police Chief Miguel Rodriguez Jr. said the train had started its journey in Long Beach, California.
The next day the train left for Laredo, where a Union Pacific rail yard worker saw a leg sticking out of the container and found six bodies inside. The seventh victim had been left for dead near the tracks in San Antonio. Among the dead was a 14-year-old boy. The migrants were from Honduras and Mexico.
“One of those individuals frantically contacted their family as they were dying from the sweltering heat in that container,” Simmons said.
The container was stacked on top of another, could not be opened from inside, and had no ventilation or cooling. The U.S. Attorney’s office put that day’s temperatures at 88 to 92 degrees Fahrenheit. The Webb County medical examiner suspected hyperthermia, or heat stroke. At the time of the discovery, the medical examiner’s office had said temperatures reached as high as 105 degrees, according to NBC News.
The charges
Each defendant faces two counts: conspiracy to transport aliens resulting in death, and aiding and abetting the transportation of aliens resulting in death. Each count carries a penalty of up to life in prison, Simmons said. The indictment says the migrants paid “generally the equivalent of $1,500-$10,000” to people in Honduras, Mexico, the United States and elsewhere to be taken into the interior of the country.
One defendant was arrested May 12 in Del Rio. Eight more were arrested over several days the week before the announcement in central and south Texas. A man and a woman remain at large. Officials said four of the defendants are U.S. citizens, two are permanent U.S. residents and five were in the country without legal status. They did not give the nationalities of those five.
Earlier cases
Smuggling on trains has long worried authorities, partly because U.S.-bound trains often slow or stop in Mexico before the border, giving smugglers and migrants a chance to climb aboard. In 2023, two people died among 17 found in two rail cars near Knippa, Texas, about 70 miles west of San Antonio. Two smugglers were sentenced to life in prison last year in the deaths of 53 migrants in a tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022, which remains the deadliest human smuggling attempt across the border.
Border Patrol agents in the Laredo sector encountered about 40 people a day crossing illegally in March, the third busiest of nine sectors along the border.
Sources
- 6 people found dead in train boxcar and 1 found dead near railroad tracks in Texas
- Eleven indicted in smuggling deaths of seven migrants in Texas
- 11 indicted in smuggling deaths of 7 migrants in rail cargo container amid sweltering Texas heat
