More than 60 migrants were found by the U.S. Border Patrol in a box truck stopped on the highway in the Big Bend area of West Texas, KTRE 9 News said.
The discovery was made at a checkpoint during an inspection 200 miles southeast of the El Paso area.
The driver arrested in the recent trafficking bust was identified as Javier Duarte, 22, of Las Cruces, N.M., CBS DFW said. He was charged with the human trafficking-related counts of illegally transporting migrants and aiding felons in reentering the country illegally. If convicted, Duarte faces up to 10 years in prison.
Three of the smuggled migrants had aggravated felony convictions for rape, drug possession and crimes involving moral turpitude, the West Texas U.S. attorney said. Four migrants were children ages 8 to 13.
The University of Texas at Austin Institute on Sexual Violence and Domestic Assault said that there are 78,996 minor and youth victims of human trafficking and 234,457 victims of labor trafficking in Texas at any given time, totaling 313,453 victims of human trafficking in its 2016 report, "Human Trafficking by the Numbers: Initial Benchmarks of Prevalence & Economic Impact in Texas."
More than two-thirds (68%) of Americans think the current administration is doing a “bad job” at dealing with the border crisis and 79% of respondents believe it is very or somewhat important to reduce the number of asylum seekers at the U.S. border, the Pew Research Center said its survey in April 2021 revealed.
The Bullock Texas State History Museum will takes its human trafficking awareness and prevention exhibition on the road starting in January 2022.
"By raising awareness of how human trafficking affects Texans, the Bullock is proud to use its educational platform to create this bilingual traveling version of Not Alone," Bullock Museum Director Margaret Koch said in a Globe Newswire release.
