SAN ANTONIO — Immigration rights groups are continuing to push for change in Washington after the single deadliest migrant smuggling incident in U.S. history, which happened one year ago.
Quintana Road on San Antonio’s southwest side is the site of tragedy and remembrance after 53 migrants died in a sweltering semi-tractor trailer. Multiple people were arrested in connection to the atrocity.
A makeshift memorial has grown and evolved since the incident, featuring massive crosses and flags representing the countries of each victim.
Danny Farias, a San Antonio musician, visited the memorial where he paid his respects to the men, women and children who perished.
“It was just a tragedy and just didn’t have to happen in San Antonio but it did,” Farias said.
Farias created a song about the 53 migrants who died and hopes it’s heard around the world.
“Our end goal was to write the music to honor them so that the families that are all over the world would understand that there are Americans that do care about the humanitarian issues that happen in this country,” Farias said.
The human smuggling catastrophe in San Antonio reignited the national conversation about immigration in the U.S. The CEO of RAICES Dolores Schroeder sees what happened as a humanitarian injustice that could have been prevented.
“This was a direct result of the immigration system that has dehumanized and criminalized people who are seeking freedom and safety within our borders,” Schroeder said.
RAICES provides a variety of social and legal services for asylum seekers. Schroeder is urging lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to implement a more humane immigration system that’s free of barriers that make it difficult to enter the U.S. legally.
It’s a sentiment shared by the national president of LULAC, Domingo Garcia, who believes Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to secure the border through laws and Operation Lonestar, are only further damaging the path for those who wish to come to America.
“We’re spending billions of dollars and not making a difference expect money is going into the human smugglers and people are getting more desperate and as long as there’s a profit to be made on human misery and desperation, you’re going to see tragedies like what happened in San Antonio a year ago happen again and again,” Garcia said.
On Sunday, community and city leaders gathered at the makeshift memorial along Quintana Road.
The City of San Antonio is in the early stages of developing a plan to establish a permanent memorial to honor the 53 migrants.