11 Migrants Found Locked in U-Haul Truck in Arizona near Border

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents found 11 migrants locked in a U-Haul box truck near the Arizona-Mexico border. The migrants, including a small child, had no means of escape from the locked cargo area.

Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent Sabri Y. Dikman tweeted a photo showing Douglas Station Border Patrol agents with a group of migrants. The agents found the 11 migrants locked inside the U-Haul box truck during an immigration stop a few miles east of Douglas, Arizona.

Human smugglers frequently pack migrants like cargo in the locked cargo areas of U-Haul trucks as they attempt to move them into the U.S. interior, Breitbart Texas reproted.

In August, sheriff’s office deputies in Refugio County, Texas, found 34 migrants locked in the suffocating heat of a locked U-Haul truck approximately 180 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border. The “human cargo” included some unaccompanied minors.

Laredo Sector agents also found smugglers using a U-Haul, this time to smuggle 27 migrants in the scorching heat. Officials reported the temperature inside the truck to be approximately nearly 107 degrees.

In June, Big Bend Sector agents found 33 migrants locked in a U-Haul near Van Horn, Texas. At least 12 of the migrants had to be transported to a local hospital for heat-related illness.

“Had our heroic agents not been able to free these trapped undocumented migrants, we could have seen 33 miserable deaths in this event,” said Big Bend Sector Chief Patrol Agent Sean L. McGoffin. “Smugglers do not care what type of misery they put people through as they take their money.”