2 Migrants Were Found Dead in a Train, Said Texas Police

Texas’s Uvalde (AP) — After South Texas police received a call that migrants were “suffocating” in a goods train moving close to the Mexican border, 2 migrants were discovered dead and at least 10 others were taken to the hospital on Friday.

The Texas Police said:

The train was able to be stopped after Border Patrol learned about the phone call, according to the Uvalde Police Department.

There, about 15 migrants were discovered, the department said in a statement. The individuals were discovered in two cars on the train traveling east from Eagle Pass headed for San Antonio, according to a statement from Union Pacific Railroad: 12 in a shipping container and three in a hopper car.

According to the statement, the two fatalities occurred inside the shipping container. Authorities reported that while some were taken to nearby hospitals, at least four people were airlifted to San Antonio. It was unclear right away how everyone who was hospitalized was doing.

According to a tweet, two male patients, one in critical condition and the other in serious condition, had been brought to University Health in San Antonio.

According to Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez, dispatchers received a 911 call from an unidentified caller seeking assistance at about 3:50 p.m. The town of Knippa, which is just over 100 miles (161 kilometers) from the southern border, was close to where the train came to a stop.

Rodriguez said, “We’re still trying to figure out if it was from someone inside the car.” “We’re assuming it was from one of the cars,” said the group. Union Pacific Railroad will oversee the investigation, according to Uvalde police.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, suggested in a statement that the deaths and injuries may have been related to human trafficking and vowed to hold those responsible accountable. Mayorkas posted on Twitter, “We are heartbroken to learn of yet another tragic incident of migrants taking the dangerous journey.” “Smugglers are heartless and only concerned with their bottom line.”

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It was not immediately known what caused the death on Friday. It got as hot as 90 degrees (32.2 Celsius) in the area on some days, and shipping containers frequently get much hotter than the outside air. Numerous migrants were discovered in the back of a scorching tractor-trailer that had been abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio, where more than 50 migrants perished last summer. Officials vowed to increase policing after the tragedy, which was the nation’s deadliest smuggling incident on the southern border of the United States.

Regular migrant traffic through Uvalde, Texas results in high-speed car chases that lock down nearby schools. Texas lawmakers concluded in a report following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde last May, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, that the regularity of the lockdowns may have contributed to a “diminished sense of vigilance” regarding security. Union Pacific expressed its “deep sorrow” over the incident and the tragedies taking place at the border. We are committed to ensuring everyone’s safety, and we constantly collaborate with law enforcement to spot smuggled goods and passengers on or inside our rail cars.

A 17-year-old was charged on Friday on the other side of Texas with kidnapping two migrants, whose rescue from a Houston hotel by FBI agents earlier this week resulted in gunfire that killed another suspect. A prosecutor claims that the kidnappers stopped the migrants on a highway northwest of Houston on Saturday and forced them into another vehicle.

After the shooting in north Houston, the FBI claims its agents saved two migrants. From the perspective of the authorities, little is known about what transpired between that time and Thursday morning.