LAREDO, TEXAS – Laredo West Border Patrol agents assigned to the U.S. Border Patrol Immigration Checkpoint located on U.S. Hwy 83 northwest of Laredo, Texas encountered a semi-trailer full of people trying to enter the United States illegally.
The incident occurred on May 10, 2019 at 12:15 a.m., when agents who were working checkpoint operations encountered a black semi-truck with a white trailer. While interviewing the driver, who claimed to have no identification, a canine alerted to the odors of concealed humans and/or narcotics within the trailer. The tractor-trailer was referred to the secondary inspection area where the driver absconded through the passenger door and ran into an adjacent field.
Agents proceeded to open the trailer and discovered a total of 120 people. Although all individuals appeared to be in good health, they were evaluated by Border Patrol Emergency Medical Technicians. Fortunately for all individuals found inside the trailer, the weather was unseasonably cool and conditions inside the trailer were bearable. Nonetheless, it would have been impossible for the people to escape the trailer as it could not be opened from the inside.
The individuals apprehended in the trailer consisted of 11 juveniles from Honduras and Guatemala along with 109 adults both male and females from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico.
The Laredo Sector Border Patrol continues to warn against the dangers of people crossing illegally into the United States through dangerous environmental conditions. As part of our humanitarian, binational strategy called the Border Safety Initiative, the Laredo Sector Border Patrol continues to warn people of the dangers of crossing into the United States illegally. In the majority of cases, those who try to enter our country illegally are subjected to dangerous conditions that put their lives at risk.