A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officer has shared video that purportedly shows the discovery of 19 undocumented migrants smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border in an 18-wheeler truck.
DPS spokesperson Lieutenant Chris Olivarez shared the 1:42 video clip on Thursday to X, formerly Twitter. The video, taken on Tuesday, appears to show the migrants being found stuffed inside the cab of the 18-wheeler. Olivarez said the driver of the truck and an accompanying pickup were both arrested, while the migrants were transferred to U.S. Border Patrol authorities.
“Troopers and Special Agents stopped a Peterbilt truck and a Dodge Ram pickup on IH-35 in Webb County,” Olivarez wrote while sharing the video. “The driver of the Peterbilt, from Tomball, Texas, consented to a search of the truck. 19 illegal immigrants from Mexico were discovered concealed inside the cab area, including one suffering from heat exhaustion.”
“The driver of the Dodge Ram, of Jarrell, Texas, had been escorting the Peterbilt,” he added. “Both drivers were arrested and charged with smuggling of persons.”
Eighteen-wheeler trucks are pictured near a U.S. Border Patrol inspection station outside Laredo, Texas, on February 22, 2017. A video shared online by a Texas Department of Public Safety officer on Thursday purportedly shows 19 migrants found after being smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border in the cab of an 18-wheeler.
JIM WATSON/AFP
The current status of the migrants and the two suspects, identified as Jackson Earl West of Tomball and Dennis Alan Davis of Jarrell, was unclear at the time of publication.
Newsweek reached out for comment to U.S. Customs and Border Protection via email on Thursday night.
#VIDEO: 𝐓𝐗 𝐃𝐏𝐒 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝟏𝟗 𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐒𝐦𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝟏𝟖-𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐫
6/4: @TxDPS Troopers and Special Agents stopped a Peterbilt truck and a Dodge Ram pickup on IH-35 in Webb County.
The driver of the Peterbilt, from… pic.twitter.com/xXI8E29QLG
— Chris Olivarez (@LtChrisOlivarez)
Authorities discovered 26 additional migrants, including 11 who required hospitalization due to heat-related injuries, after they were smuggled across the border in a trailer and taken to a rural residence near San Antonio on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
One woman reportedly told authorities that she had paid smugglers $16,000 to be taken to the U.S. from her home nation of Guatemala. Seven suspects that Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar suggested have cartel ties were arrested following the discovery.
Texas has been at the center of a surge in illegal border crossings in recent years, alongside an increasingly heated political battle over immigration policies as this year’s election rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump approaches.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott has repeatedly criticized Biden’s policies and defied his administration by launching his own “Operation Lone Star,” utilizing the Texas National Guard and DPS to erect razor wire and other border barriers, patrol the border and catch migrants.
Biden announced an executive order on Tuesday that blocks many of those who illegally cross the border from applying for asylum, calling it a necessary step due to “Republican obstruction” that preceded failure of a bipartisan border security bill in Congress earlier this year.
“I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to actually get the kind of system we have now … But Republicans have left me with no choice,” Biden said on Tuesday.
Abbott slammed the move in a Fox News interview the next day, arguing that Biden deserved “condemnation” and claimed that the order would “actually attract more people to cross the border illegally to try to be a part of that asylum process.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.