SAN ANTONIO — Two years ago, a San Antonio Walmart parking lot became the epicenter of the deadliest human smuggling case in recent U.S. history when 10 undocumented migrants traveling in a semi-truck in the sweltering Texas heat died chasing freedom.
For immigrants seeking a life in the land of the free, crossing the Rio Grande River on the southwest border is only part of the journey.
“Oftentimes once they cross the river, they are placed in a stash house until a tractor trailer or a smuggler can be located to take them further north,” said Border Patrol Acting Assistant Chef Patrol Agent Jose Martinez.
He took KENS 5 to what he calls the Charlie 29 checkpoint on I-35; the most popular route, he said, for coyotes traveling north from Laredo.
“Smugglers will often choose this particular checkpoint because of the direct routes to San Antonio, Texas,” Martinez said.
And because it’s busy.
“The agents have a few seconds, maybe 10 to 15 seconds to conduct an immigration inspection,” he said.
Just hours before KENS 5 arrived at the checkpoint, Martinez said about 20 undocumented migrants were found inside a box truck. The trailer where the migrants were housed was littered with trash, half-filled water bottles and furniture.
Martinez says, on average, migrants pay $7,500 to get smuggled into the United States. But the cost is a gamble that can cost them their lives.
Felix Chavez, Border Patrol chief patrol agent of the Laredo Sector, says coyotes, or human smugglers, treat migrants like cargo and provide them little to no resources. He says the trailers migrants are transported in sometimes don’t have air conditions, which can quickly turn dangerous in the sweltering Texas heat.
Chavez added the smugglers will also take officers on high-speed chases. In June of 2018, a smuggler took Dimmit County deputies on such a pursuit that ended in a crash, killing five undocumented immigrants, according to officials.
Martinez says they are seeing a rise in trailer human smuggling because more migrants can be transported at a time.
In July of 2017, San Antonio Police officers made the gruesome discovery at a southwest San Antonio Walmart parking lot off interstate 35. James Matthew Bradly Jr. was driving the truck where eight migrants were found dead inside the trailer.
Two others died at the hospital and dozens of others were injured or in critical condition after traveling inside the trailer.
“People actually gave statements that they were pounding and beating on the walls of that trailer trying to get out and trying to get somebody’s attention.” said Willie NG, a former criminal chief investigator for the DA's office.
According to the affidavit, one of the migrants told Homeland Security Investigators (HIS) agents people started passing out and took turns breathing through a hole in a trailer wall.
Less than five months later, San Antonio police discovered a dozen migrants in a tractor trailer near Splashtown. And, in June of 2018, 54 migrants were found on the north side of San Antonio in a semi-truck.
Last April, Bradly was sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of ten migrants, but not all smugglers will pay for their crimes.
NG says it’s difficult to prosecute a smuggling case when there are no deaths and migrants flee the scene or refuse to cooperate.