At least nine people have died following an attempt at immigrant smuggling that went drastically wrong, according to authorities. The immigrants were crammed into the rear of a tractor trailer that was left outside a Walmart store in sweltering heat at the height of summer in Texas.
Officials say that an additional 20 immigrants rescued from the rig were taken to hospital in extremely serious condition, while the driver was arrested. The Associated Press were later informed by the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Homan, that two more of the immigrants later died in hospital. Homan says that there may have been over 100 immigrants in the truck at one point, according to interviews, with 38 found inside.
Operations that make use of trucks to try to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the United States have ended in tragedy before, with one of the worst incidents on record taking place in 2003, where as many as 19 people locked inside a rig died due to the stifling heat, again in Texas. Police Chief William McManus called the event a “human trafficking crime” that resulted in a terrible tragedy, saying that there were at least two children in the rig as well as many in their twenties and thirties.
According to Charles Hood, the San Antonio Fire Chief, many of the immigrants in the rig were “hot to the touch” and there were no signs of water of any kind being available to them, with no air conditioning system.