A federal indictment was unsealed Friday against 11 people in the smuggling deaths of seven migrants, including a 14-year-old boy, who were hiding inside a sweltering rail cargo container in Texas in May. Six people were found dead inside the shipping container in a rail yard in the Texas border city of Laredo, and another had been left for dead near the tracks along the way in San Antonio, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, Justin R.
“In that kind of heat, it’s May in Texas, ultimately it’s very hard to survive in an un-air conditioned, sealed container with … the temperature being what it was on that day,” Simmons said. The group boarded the train in the Texas border town of Del Rio intending to reach San Antonio, but when smugglers there opened the door, a man fell out, so they closed it and fled, Simmons said. The next day the train departed for Laredo, where a worker at the Union Pacific Rail Yard saw a leg sticking out and found the other six bodies inside.
“One of those individuals frantically contacted their family as they were dying from the sweltering heat in that container,” Simmons said. The migrants were from Honduras and Mexico and included a 14-year-old boy, authorities said. The Webb County medical examiner suspected the deaths were caused by hyperthermia, or heat stroke.
The shipping container, which was stacked on top of another container, could not be opened from the inside and had no ventilation or cooling system. The temperatures that day ranged from 88 to 92 degrees Fahrenheit (31 to 33 degrees Celsius), the U.S. The group was indicted on two charges: Conspiracy to transport aliens, resulting in death, and aiding and abetting the transportation of aliens resulting in death.
Each is punishable by up to life in prison, Simmons said. The migrants paid “generally the equivalent of $1,500-$10,000 to individuals in Honduras, Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere, to be transported into the interior of the United States,” according to the indictment. One of the defendants was arrested May 12 in Del Rio, and eight more were arrested over several days last week in central and south Texas.
residents, and five were in the U.S. They didn’t specify the nationalities… attorney announced a federal indictment on Friday against 11 people in the smuggling deaths of seven migrants who were hiding inside a sweltering rail cargo container in Texas in May.
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