Agents of the border patrol of the Rio Grande Valley sector found a group of 75 migrants locked in a refrigerated tractor with a trailer at an immigration checkpoint near the Texas-Mexico border. Among the migrants locked in a 58-degree trailer was a four-year-old child.
Agents assigned to the Falfurrias immigration checkpoint on U.S. Highway 281, about 80 miles from the border, spotted a tractor trailer approaching for inspection on Oct. 27, according to information obtained from Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials. During the first interview, the K-9 border patrol warned of an odor coming from a trailer that was trained to detect it.
Agents at the Falfurrias checkpoint found 75 migrants shivering in a refrigerated trailer. It was set at 58 degrees and locked, with no chance of escape. Among the migrants was a four-year-old child.
Read more: https://t.co/hcj3Im25pX pic.twitter.com/MCOlXWlL6Q
– Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings (@USBPChiefRGV) October 30, 2021
Agents had to move the driver’s platform to a secondary inspection station. Agents opened the locked door of the refrigerated trailer and found a group of 75 migrants shivering inside.
Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings tweeted pictures of migrants gathered in the trailer. Hastings reports that the temperature in the trailers is set at 58 degrees. “Among the migrants was a four-year-old child,” he said.
Agents removed the migrants from the trailer and conducted interviews with immigrants and a welfare check. Migrants were identified as Central American and Mexican migrants. None needed medical care.
Officials found that the door of the trailer was locked, which would prevent migrants from exiting in the event of a collision or leaving a human smuggler.