PICTURED: Nearly 80 freezing migrants – including boy, 4, – are found crammed in the back of refrigerated truck in Texas
- U.S. Border Patrol agents located 75 migrants, among them a four-year-old boy, inside a refrigerated tractor trailer Wednesday in Edinburg, Texas
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the individuals were crowded inside the cargo box that was padlocked
- The migrants were all identified as Central American and Mexican citizens
- They were are provided medical attention on site and taken into custody
U.S. Border Patrol agents found 75 migrants, including a four-year-old boy, freezing in the back of a refrigerated tractor trailer in Texas.
Officers assigned to the Falfurrias Border Patrol were reviewing the immigration status of the driver last Wednesday when their sniffer dog led them to the rear area of the freight container in Edinburg, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.
The truck was subsequently transferred to a second inspection area at the checkpoint before the Border Patrol canine detected the presence of the migrants behind the padlocked doors.
Falfurrias Border Patrol Station agents were conducting a roadside checkpoint last Wednesday in Edinburg, Texas, when they stopped a truck hauling pallets of flour inside a refrigerated cargo box where 75 migrants were found hiding
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said all of the migrants were provided medical attention and taken into custody
The migrants were spotted sitting on top of pallets of flour and trying to stay warm inside the refrigerated container where the temperature was set to 58 degrees.
‘The migrants were unable to escape without someone opening the doors from the outside,’ CBP said.
The individuals, identified as Central American and Mexican citizens, were detained and taken into custody.
All of the migrants were screened by paramedics and did not require additional medical assistance.
CBP did not indicate whether the migrants had been smuggled from Mexico or if they were being moved to another location.
The agency did not say if the migrants were immediately expelled to Mexico.
U.S. Border Patrol agents with the Falfurrias Border Patrol Station discovered 75 migrants, including a four-year-old boy, shivering inside a locked trailer where the temperatures were set to 58 degrees
The tractor trailer bust comes as data released by CBP last week showed that U.S. Border Patrol agents reported 1.7 million encounters with migrants who unlawfully crossed the United States-Mexico border in fiscal year 2021, the highest since 1986.
Interdictions at the southwestern border increased during former President Donald Trump’s last eight full months in office and dramatically spiked in the following six full months of President Joe Biden’s in the White House.
Interdictions along the 1,954-mile long United States-Mexico borderline slightly dropped in August and September.
While the arrest numbers were lower, the Biden administration continues to struggle with finding a solution to a migrant crisis that has unraveled as some of Trump’s immigration policies were rolled back.
Nearly 3,000 migrants have spent the last week marching through southern Mexico in hopes of reaching the United States-Mexico border to seek asylum, only a month after about 15,000 migrants – mostly Haitians – set up a makeshift camp at the border in Del Rio, Texas, before the majority were expelled to Haiti or crossed back to Mexico.
Encounters at the United States southwestern border increased in each of former President Donald Trump’s last eight months in office and continued to do so at a much higher rate in President Joe Biden’s first six months at the White House
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