San Antonio-Dos smuggers accused after 53 immigrants died in the back of a strator-light-free tractor without air conditioning were declared guilty on Tuesday after a two-week trial. The 2022 tragedy in San Antonio was the most mortal smuggling attempt at the nation on the border between the United States and Mexico.
The jurors in a federal court in San Antonio took only an hour to condemn Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Ortega, discovering that they were part of a conspiracy of human smuggling that resulted in death and injuries. They face life imprisonment and have a judgment date of June 27.
The immigrants had come from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and had paid between $ 12,000 and $ 15,000 each to be smuggled in the United States, according to an accusation in the case. They had reached the border city of Texas de Laredo when they were placed in a broken air-conditioning tractor for a three-hour trip to San Antonio.
As the temperature inside the trailer rose, the interior shouted and hit the walls of the trailer in search of help or tried to collect, the researchers said. Most finally passed out. When the trailer opened in San Antonio, 48 people were already dead. Another 16 were taken to the hospitals, where five more died. The dead included six children and a pregnant woman.
“These defendants knew that the air conditioner did not work. Orduna-Torres was the leader of the smuggling group within the United States, and Gonzales-Ortega was his” man on the right, “he said.
Five men previously declared themselves guilty of charges for serious crimes in the case of smuggling, including the Homero Zamorano Truck Jr., who was found hidden near the trailer in some shrubs. He faces a maximum life sentence.
Christian Martínez, Luis Alberto Rivera-Loal, Riley Covarrubias-Ponce and Juan Francisco D’una Bilbao are also convicable. The five will be sentenced at the end of this year. Another accused person in the United States is still a fugitive, Leachman said. Several others have been accused in Mexico and Guatemala.
The incident is the deadliest among the tragedies that have gained thousands of lives in recent decades as people try to cross the border of the United States from Mexico. Ten immigrants died in 2017 after they were trapped inside a truck parked in a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 immigrants were found in a suffocating truck southeast of San Antonio.
