SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Seven migrant smuggling suspects have been arrested and 11 migrants were hospitalized after a law enforcement sting Thursday near San Antonio, authorities said.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said a total of 26 migrants were found at a house in South Bexar County. Of those, 11 were taken to a hospital with heat-related injuries, Salazar said.
Authorities received a tip about a smuggling operation and followed a trailer that was towed to a rural residence. The migrants were packed into a false compartment under the trailer for three hours without water, Salazar said.
Temperatures in San Antonio were in the high 90s Thursday afternoon and were expected to top 100, according to the National Weather Service.
“We think everybody is out of the woods, as far as losing their life,” Salazar said.
The nationalities of most of the migrants were not immediately known but all appeared to be adults, Salazar said, adding he believed they were driven to the area from the border city of Laredo. One woman told authorities she was from Guatemala and had paid $16,000 to be brought to the U.S.
The incident came two days after President Joe Biden unveiled plans to enact immediate significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border as the White House tries to neutralize immigration as a political liability ahead of the November elections.
San Antonio was the site of the nation’s deadliest human smuggling episode in June 2022. Fifty-three migrants, including eight children, died after being trapped in sweltering semi-trailer that had been driven from Laredo. The trailer had a malfunctioning air-conditioning unit. When authorities found it on a remote San Antonio road, 48 migrants were already dead and five more later died at hospitals. The dead migrants in that incident were from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
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