SAN ANTONIO (AP) – The tug trailer at the center of an attempt to smuggle people, which killed 53 people, passed through an internal checkpoint of the US Border Patrol with migrants inside the hot platform earlier in its journey , a U.S. official said Thursday.
The truck went through the checkpoint on Interstate 35, located 26 miles (42 kilometers) northeast of the border city of Laredo, Texas.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, said there were 73 people in the truck when it was discovered Monday in San Antonio, including the 53 who died. It’s unclear whether agents stopped the driver for questioning at the interior checkpoint or whether the truck passed through unimpeded.
The revelation draws new attention to an old political question about whether the approximately 110 checkpoints along the interior highways along the Mexican and Canadian borders are effective enough at spotting people in cars and trucks entering the United States illegally. They are usually located up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the border.
Texas police have also announced that they will run their own internal tug checkpoints on the orders of Gov. Greg Abbott, who considers the Biden administration’s efforts insufficient. It was not clear how many trucks would stop.
Also Thursday, Homero Samorano Jr., 45, the alleged tugboat driver, first appeared in San Antonio federal court. During the hearing, which lasted about five minutes, Zamorano, wearing a white T-shirt and gray tracksuits, said very little, answering “yes” and “no” to questions from U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Honest about his rights and allegations against him.
The judge appointed a federal public defender for Samorano, as well as a second lawyer, as the smuggling charge he faces carries a possible death sentence. She scheduled a hearing next week to determine if he was eligible for bail.
It remains unclear how long the migrants were in the trailer on the sweltering day, and whether the smugglers’ confiscation of their mobile phones before they were placed inside contributed to the extremely high death toll. In this case, there were no emergency calls from trapped migrants, as in previous incidents.
On Thursday, Jose Santos Bueso of El Progreso, Honduras said his daughter, Jasmin Nayarit Bueso Nunes, 37, told him in their last conversation that she was in Laredo, that smugglers would take their phones and she would not be able to communicate for a time. She last texted her 15-year-old son around noon Monday, saying they were about to head to San Antonio and she would be out of touch.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that border patrol agents could stop vehicles at internal checkpoints for short interrogations without a warrant, even if there was no reason to believe they were transporting people into the country illegally. Still, the practice has galvanized immigration advocates and civil libertarians, who see the checkpoints as ripe for racial profiling and abuse of power. Some drivers posted videos on social media accusing agents of harsh, inappropriate questioning.
The Laredo checkpoint is on one of the busiest highways on the border, especially for trucks, which increases the possibility of stifling trade and creating chaos if every driver is stopped and questioned.
Border Patrol officials call checkpoints an imperfect but effective second line of defense after the border, acknowledging that agents must balance law enforcement interests with disrupting legitimate trade and travel.
The volume and configuration varies greatly between checkpoints, but agents typically have five to seven seconds to decide whether to question a driver, said Roy Villarreal, former border patrol sector chief in Tucson, Arizona.
“After all, it is very difficult to deal with crime in general. It’s hard to say if you’re 100% effective, 50%, 10%. “
U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, who passes through the checkpoint almost every week, said investigators believe the migrants boarded the truck in or around Laredo, although that has not been confirmed. This would be consistent with smuggling patterns: migrants cross the border on foot and hide in a house or in bushes on US territory before being picked up and taken to the nearest major city.
Even if the truck was empty, it would raise questions about checkpoints. Migrants often die trying to get around them, leaving them before they reach them, with plans to be picked up on the other side. In the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest illegal crossing corridor, migrants pass through sweltering ranches to avoid a checkpoint in Falfurias, Texas, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of the border.
The Government Accountability Office reported this month that agents at domestic checkpoints detained about 35,700 people believed to be in the U.S. illegally from fiscal years 2016 to 2020, just about 2 percent of all arrests of border patrol. Agents seized drugs nearly 18,000 times during that period, with more than nine out of 10 arrests involving US citizens.
They have been a trap for American citizens carrying even small bags of marijuana. About 40 percent of pot seizures at Border Patrol checkpoints from fiscal years 2013 to 2016 were of an ounce (28 grams) or less from U.S. citizens, according to an earlier GAO report.
Abbott did not provide details on the scope of the new Texas internal inspections announced Thursday. Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the troops would take a “more aggressive stance.” Asked if that meant stopping every truck, Olivares said he didn’t know and that it would partly depend on staffing.
“It will be a check more than we usually check,” Olivares said.
In April, Abbott blocked the Texas border for a week after ordering troops to check every tug trailer coming in from Mexico as part of his ongoing fight with the Biden administration over immigration policy. These checks, which were mechanical checks and safety checks, did not find any migrants or drugs.
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Spagat reported from San Diego. Paul Weber in Austin, Texas and Delmer Martinez in El Progreso, Honduras contributed to this report.
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