By Jorge Carrasco and Francisco Fajardo
The vehicle was located, but not the dozens of people calling for help inside.
As of next Saturday, the whereabouts of some 80 migrants who traveled earlier in the week in a tanker in Texas, from where they made a chilling call to 911 to report that they were suffocating and asking for help, is still unknown.
On Friday evening, authorities said they had found the empty white truck at a location about two hours from the city of San Antonio. They also confirmed that a person is being held in connection with the possible human trafficking operation, but have not shared any further details.
“This person” most certainly will tell the officers “that no one has sustained any kind of injury or dangerBecause she doesn’t want to be involved in more federal charges, ”Arístides Jiménez, former deputy director of the San Antonio National Security Investigation Office, a division of ICE working on the case, told Noticias Telemundo.
Although the truck appeared, it is not known whether the migrants traveling in are safe. The tank of this type of truck is often used to transport liquids or gases that can be hazardous to health.
The nationality of the migrants is also unknown (the conversation with 911 was in Spanish).
ICE said in a brief statement Friday night that “the investigation is continuing and agents are following directions to move the case forward and ensure the safety of the individuals.”
[ICE estuvo a punto de liberar a agresores sexuales de menores, ¿por qué?]
“We will continue to address the serious threat to public safety posed by human trafficking organizations and their reckless disregard for the health and safety of the traffickers,” the statement added.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, which released the first footage of the tanker on Wednesday, had asked the community for help in locating the vehicle.
“I just want to know if these people got where they were going and if they’re okay,” said Bexar County sheriff Javier Salazar, in a video released by his office on Wednesday. “I’m not interested in arresting the people who were inside.”
Noticias Telemundo’s lawyer, Alma Rosa Nieto, said those traveling in the truck could be eligible for a special U or T visa, due to their potential status as victims of human trafficking. “This requires not only that they have sustained significant physical or mental damage, but that they have reported the crime,” Nieto said.
Texas federal, state, and local authorities began a search for the vehicle days after a person calling from the San Antonio metropolitan area reported that about 80 people were trapped in the truck’s tank and were unable to breathe.
“No, we don’t see anything, God, we don’t have oxygen,” one of the migrants said when the emergency call operator asked him on Monday evening if he could identify where the truck was. Other people could be heard screaming, crying, and gasping for air in the background in the audio.
[Migrantes en albergues expresan alivio de pelear sus casos en EE.UU. tras el fin de ‘Quédate en México’]
Shortly afterwards, the migrants indicated in another call that they believed they were being held by a highway because of the noise they heard.
“Help, blessed God” is the last heard before the call was cut off. “I lost them,” the operator hears say.
The migrants are believed to have called 911 from I-35. There, a security camera recorded the vehicle’s passage, but when the authorities arrived on the scene, they found no trace.
Mexico’s State Department said Friday that the country is “following up on the case of a trailer (tank) in a timely manner” and reiterating “their firm belief to protect the human rights of migrants and their pledge to ensure that they do so. migrant flows are carried out in an orderly and safe manner. “
Human trafficking cases occur thousands of times a day in the United States, Salazar said, and traffickers “herded these people like cattle.”
“The only difference is that in this case we could have a look because this gentleman could call,” he said.
[Mayorkas promete que no separará a familias en la frontera]
In 2017, nine people died and 20 had to be hospitalized (many of them suffering from extreme dehydration and heat stroke), after being stacked in a sweltering trailer truck parked in front of a Walmart in San Antonio. The driver was arrested and the authorities called the case a failed attempt at smuggling immigrants at the time.
“These human trafficking organizations don’t care about human life”Arístides Jiménez, a former National Security investigator, told NBC News, Noticias Telemundo’s sister network. “All they care about is making a profit.”