Human Smuggling Crash Leaves Three Migrants Dead in Texas near Border

A single-vehicle crash in Kinney County, Texas, claimed the lives of three migrants. A passing motorist discovered the grisly scene near Brackettville on Sunday and immediately notified authorities. According to Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe, the accident did not involve a law enforcement pursuit.

Coe told Breitbart Texas he suspects the vehicle was exclusively occupied by migrants. Deputies identified a surviving passenger, one of five occupants in the vehicle, as the brother of the person driving the vehicle. The crash killed the driver (also a migrant) and two other migrants in the vehicle after the driver lost control and veered off the roadway. The crash occurred near a sharp curve on Farm to Market Road 131 between Eagle Pass and Brackettville.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials said the driver of the vehicle swerved to avoid an animal. The driver lost control and veered off the roadway, rolling multiple times before coming to a rest upside down.

Sheriff Coe says his deputies are encountering vehicles that are already exceeding the speed limit when they are first seen by authorities. The sheriff suspects that may be the case in this crash.

“The driver must have been speeding, the accident was right at a sharp curve, and it looks like he just lost control,” The sheriff told Breitbart. He believes the smugglers are leaving the border area at high speeds hoping to avoid detection by authorities and get farther away as quickly as possible.

The unidentified driver is related to a passenger in the vehicle who is a migrant who recently crossed the Rio Grande illegally. Because of this fact, Coe says the migrants may have been provided the vehicle by traffickers or procured the vehicle themselves. That matter, he says, will be determined as the investigation into the crash progresses.

Sheriff Coe told Breitbart that law enforcement authorities in his county have intercepted numerous migrant smuggling cases daily.

“On the Farm to Market Road 2523 leaving Brackettville, we’ve seen 53 smuggling loads in just seven days,” he stated. “The likelihood of more deaths involving human smuggling is only going to get worse.”

Texas DPS troopers are leading the investigation into the fatal crash, officials stated.

The fatal crash is the second involving migrants in the area in four days. On Wednesday, a vehicle spotted by authorities driving erratically 30 miles away near Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of two and injured ten others after the driver collided with a semi-tractor trailer near the city square. A female juvenile, suspected of smuggling the ten migrant passengers was killed instantly in the collision.

Residents and government officials have become increasingly frustrated with the situation at the border. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas about the deadly vehicle collision in Uvalde, U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales (R-TX) says the deaths on the border illustrated by the chaotic scene in Uvalde signals a need for a return to migrant removals for those that don’t qualify for asylum and for additional policy changes.

Gonzales says residents feel abandoned by the Biden administration’s neglect for security and safety when it comes to those living along the border in Texas and elsewhere.

On Friday, the federal government’s fiscal year ended with a record-setting number of migrant apprehensions. Border Patrol agents apprehended 2.2 million migrants who illegally crossed the southwest border with Mexico, according to a source within U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In addition, the unofficial year-end numbers show an estimate of nearly 604,000 migrant got-aways.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with additional information from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.