The truck where about 80 migrants are suspected of traveling in Texas that called 911 Monday evening to warn they were choking was found empty two hours from the city of San Antonio, sources said Friday. To NBC News, Noticias Telemundo’s sister network.
One person has been arrested in connection with the potential human trafficking operation, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) confirmed in a statement.
Authorities have not yet reported the whereabouts or health of the immigrants who have been detained and have reported by telephone that they were unable to breathe. It is not known whether there are victims and who will be arrested.
[La llamada de auxilio al 911 de decenas de inmigrantes encerrados en un camión]
Their nationalities are also unknown.
“The investigation is ongoing as agents are following clues to advance the case and ensure the safety of the people,” ICE said in the statement.
“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 traffickers,” he said.
A security video that Noticias Telemundo accessed on Friday shows a black truck following the white tanker where the detained migrants are said to have traveled. It is 11:20 pm local time on Monday and the two vehicles are stopping.
Then a man gets out of the black truck and as he goes to the side where the driver of the pipe is. When he passes behind the truck, the man is out of sight.
Sixteen minutes later, the truck driver – wearing a white jacket – is seen walking around the vehicle and approaching one of the water taps. Walk to the tank, go up the ladder and check something
“From where he got in he looks up a bit, that’s a door,” said José Torres, owner of the parking lot where the cameras captured the tanker, in an interview with Noticias Telemundo. “He feels helpless because he couldn’t do anything about it,” he complains.
The truck headed for San Antonio, and 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.
Now Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, is investigating together with local authorities the possibility of human trafficking, a knowledgeable agency source confirmed to Noticias Telemundo.
Up to 80 people are trapped in the back of the truck or white pipe, reportedly trapped by coyotes to escape immigration surveillance.
“No, we don’t see anything, God, we don’t have oxygen”One of the migrants said when asked by the 911 operator if he could identify where the truck was on Monday night. In the background other people could be heard screaming, crying and gasping for air.
Shortly afterwards, the migrants indicated in another call that they thought so stopped at a road by the sound they heard.
“Help, blessed God” is the last heard before the call was cut off. “I lost them,” said the operator.
[Estos migrantes sobrevivieron al ‘tráiler de la muerte’ de Texas. Ahora el coronavirus los lleva al límite]
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, which released the first footage of the tanker on Wednesday, has clarified that it was difficult to identify because of the amount of traffic on the road that unites Mexico and Texas.
“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.
The sheriff has asked the community for help locating the vehicle. “I’m not interested in arresting the people who were inside”Salazar clarified.
Last Friday, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Relations said it is “providing timely follow-up to the case of a trailer (tank)” and that the State Department “reiterates its firm commitment to protect the human rights of migrants and its commitment. . to ensure that migration flows are carried out in an orderly and safe manner “.
The investigation comes as arrests of migrants at the US-Mexico border have soared after a sharp drop at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
In January, US officials almost ran into 78,000 migrants who attempted to cross the southern border illegally or were refused entry at ports, an increase of 6% over the previous month.
If you have any information on the matter, you can anonymously share it with Homeland Security authorities by calling (866) 347-2423.