Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) expanded border security last week after dozens of migrants were left to die in an abandoned semi-truck on a country road almost 150 miles north of the US-Mexico border, a tragedy the governor said was "on" President Joe Biden.
Abbott ordered new checkpoints for trucks coming into the U.S. from Mexico after the migrants, many already dead, were discovered, according to a news release issued by the governor's office Wednesday, June 30. The new measures created the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) strike teams, established DPS checkpoints and deployed Texas Military Department resources "to mitigate President Biden's growing border crisis," the news release said.
"President Biden needs to focus on addressing the humanitarian crisis his reckless leadership has created at the border, instead of attacking the jobs of hardworking Texans and oil production in the Permian Basin," Abbott said in the news release. "The Lone Star State will not sit idly by as the federal government chooses to ignore the historic number of illegal crossings, human smuggling, and drug trafficking of deadly fentanyl from Mexico into the United States. Our government has no greater responsibility than to provide public safety to its citizens. Until President Biden decides to uphold immigration laws passed by Congress, the State of Texas will continue utilizing every tool available to secure the border and keep Texans – and Americans – safe."
Abbott announced the new border security measures during a news conference in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Late last month, multiple news outlets, including Reuters, reported the suspected driver of the truck abandoned it on a highway near San Antonio, Texas in sweltering 103°F heat and packed with migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. The death toll stands at 53.
The alleged driver and "an accused conspirator" now face federal human trafficking charges, and two Mexican nationals have been charged with being in the country illegally and in possession of firearms, Reuters reported.
"It's tragic," San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a KSAT news story. "They had families... and were likely trying to find a better life. It's nothing short of a horrific human tragedy."
The incident was the greatest loss of life from a human trafficking attempt in the U.S., Reuter's said the same day, citing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent Craig Larrabee.
In a social media post the day the abandoned truck was discovered, Abbott placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on Biden.
"These deaths are on Biden," Abbott said in his Twitter post. "They are a result of his deadly open border policies. They show the deadly consequences of his refusal to enforce the law."
For his part, Biden issued his own statement saying the incident was "horrifying and heartbreaking."
"Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my Administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry," Biden said.
ICE currently reports more than 1.4 million encounters along the southern border in fiscal 2022, a significant jump from the 897,870 encounters the previous year.
Human smuggling certainly is nothing new in Texas, and it leads to human trafficking. A 2016 University of Texas at Austin report found that 78,996 minor and youth victims of human trafficking and 234,457 victims of labor trafficking are in Texas at any given time.
Not much has changed since 2016, Texas Public Policy Foundation Policy Scholar Selene Rodriguez told the Austin Journal earlier this year.
"Human smuggling is the precursor of human trafficking," Rodriguez said. "People who conspire with human smugglers to illegally enter the United States typically incur in thousands of dollars of debt to make the trip. After entering the country illegally, these same people are often forced to pay off that debt through forced labor and sexual exploitation, which is the essence of the modern-day slavery that is human trafficking."
A Texas Public Policy Foundation report issued in March found that 73% of Hispanic Texans believe a “crisis” is going on at the Texas-Mexico border. More than 50% want the local and federal government to do more to mitigate crisis while 60% of Hispanic Texans support increasing law enforcement along the border.
Also in March, Fox News reported Mexican cartels make as much as $14 million dollars a day smuggling people across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Many of those smuggled end up trafficked, essentially slaves, once they're in the U.S., Retired Tucson Border Patrol Chief Roy Villareal said in the Fox News report.
"A lot of these vulnerable populations use their life savings," Villareal said "Some are essentially indentured servants and they're working off this debt for a long period of time. In other cases, some of these migrants are asked to transport narcotics or some form of crime to work off a different part of their debt."
