Texas sheriff’s deputies responded with Border Patrol agents after receiving a tip about a suspicious tractor-trailer in a residential neighborhood near the border. The law enforcement team found 84 migrants who had been offloaded from the 18-wheeler.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra tweeted photos on Thursday afternoon of a human smuggling incident involving a tractor-trailer and a potential stash house near Olivarez, Texas. The sheriff said deputies working border security under Operation Stone Garden received information about an 18-wheeler unloaded suspected migrants in a residential area.
The deputies and Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents responded to the area and recovered 84 migrants who had been transported by human smugglers in the refrigerated trailer.
It appears none of the 84 migrants required medical attention.
Texas deputies find 84 migrants who had been transported in a tractor-trailer. (Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office)
The sheriff added that the matter remains under investigation. The tweet did not include information about the smuggler or the nationality of the 84 migrants.
The dangerous practice of locking migrants in the rear of tractor-trailers has become more frequent and more migrants have to be moved from the border to stash houses and into the U.S. interior.
Earlier this year, agents in the Laredo Sector found nearly 500 migrants in nine tractor-trailer smuggling incidents in a single week, Breitbart Texas reported.
Unfortunately, this tactic can have deadly consequences. In June, Breitbart reported that at least 53 migrants died after being abandoned in a similar tractor-trailer rig in San Antonio. A senior law enforcement source on the scene told Breitbart Texas that 46 migrants were declared dead on the scene or at area hospitals and at least 16 others were taken to area hospitals. The dead-on-scene figure was later revised to 48. Five others died in the hours and days that followed.