Images of Jair Valencia, left, Misael Olivares, center, and Yovani Valencia are displayed on the altar at their home in San Marcos Atexquilapan, Mexico, on July 13, 2022. The three are among a group of dead migrants. from heat and dehydration in a locked trailer abandoned by smugglers in suburban San Antonio on June 27.
Felix Marquez / AP
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Felix Marquez / AP
Images of Jair Valencia, left, Misael Olivares, center, and Yovani Valencia are displayed on the altar at their home in San Marcos Atexquilapan, Mexico, on July 13, 2022. The three are among a group of dead migrants. from heat and dehydration in a locked trailer abandoned by smugglers in suburban San Antonio on June 27.
Felix Marquez / AP
Two men were indicted Wednesday in the case of an unheated tractor-trailer rig found last month along with 53 dead or dying migrants in San Antonio, officials said.
A federal grand jury in San Antonio indicted Homero Zamorano Jr., 46, and Christian Martinez, 28, both of Pasadena, Texas, on charges of transporting and conspiring to transport illegal immigrants resulting in illegal immigration. to death; transporting and conspiring to transport illegal migrants resulting in serious injury.
Both remain in federal custody without bond pending trial. Martinez’s attorney, David Shearer of San Antonio, declined to comment on the charges. A message to Zamorano’s attorney was not immediately returned.
Conviction on the death penalty can result in a life sentence, but the Attorney General’s Office can authorize prosecutors to seek the death penalty. The charges of causing serious bodily harm can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
It is the deadliest tragedy that has claimed the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico. Francisco Garduño, director of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, said the truck was full of 67 people, including 27 from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador.
The incident happened on a secluded road in San Antonio on June 27. Police officers arrested Zamorano after discovering him hiding in some nearby palm trees, according to a statement from the Office US Attorney. A search of Zamorano’s cell phone revealed calls with Martinez related to the smuggling case.
Surveillance video of the 18-wheeler passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint shows the driver matching Zamorano’s description, according to the indictment. One survivor of the journey, a 20-year-old man from Guatemala, told The Associated Press that smugglers covered the floor of the trailer with what she believed was chicken meal, apparently to throw any animals any dog at the checkpoint.
The tragedy comes at a time of large numbers of migrants arriving in the US, many of them taking risks to cross fast-flowing rivers and canals and scorching desert landscapes. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up a third from a year ago.
Of the 73 people on board the truck, those killed included people from the Mexican states of Guanajuato, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Mexico, Zacatecas, Queretaro, Morelos and Mexico City. Migrants from Honduras and Guatemala were also among those killed in what is known as the bloodiest smuggling operation in the United States.
In 2017, 10 people died after being trapped inside a van parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck in the southeast of the city.
