Two men from Texas are facing criminal charges stemming from the investigation into an attempted human smuggling incident in June involving a tractor trailer, which resulted in 53 deaths, including three children and 10 adults and another child injured.
On July 20, a federal grand jury returned indictments against Homero Zamorano, Jr., 46, of Pasadena, Texas, and Christian Martinez, 28, of Palestine, Texas, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas.
"On June 27, 2022, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents responded to the scene of a human smuggling event involving a tractor trailer and 64 individuals suspected of entering the United States illegally," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. "San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) officers advised HSI Agents that they arrived at the location of the tractor trailer in southwest San Antonio after receiving 911 calls from concerned citizens. At the scene, SAPD officers discovered multiple individuals some still inside the tractor trailer, some on the ground and in nearby brush, many of them deceased and some of them incapacitated."
Zamorano and Martinez are each facing four counts, including conspiracy to transport illegal aliens, resulting in death, and transportation of illegal aliens. If convicted, the two could face a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty. It will be up to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty in those cases.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), San Antonio Police found Zamorano pretending to be a wounded migrant when they discovered the tractor trailer. A search of his phone turned up conversations between him and Martinez about the smuggling incident. A video from Border Patrol showed Zamorano driving the semitruck across an immigration checkpoint.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda Brown, Sarah Spears and Jose Luis Acosta will be prosecuting the case.
Reuters reported that Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of ICE investigations, pointed out that this one incident marked the largest number of deaths in one attempted smuggling incident in America.
Selene Rodriguez, a Texas Public Police Foundation Policy Scholar, told the Austin Journal, "Human smuggling is the precursor to human trafficking." Rodriguez pointed out that those who work with smugglers to illegally enter the U.S. acquire a lot of debt in the process and usually are forced into labor or sexual exploitation in order to pay off that debt.
