(NewsNation) — Human smuggling continues to be an issue on the southern border — something NewsNation saw for itself as it rode along by land, air and sea alongside the Texas Department of Public Safety.
NewsNation was just a few miles down the road as officials apprehended an individual with a terrorist alert on them. That person, from South Africa, was relayed over to special agents for further questioning.
Altogether, Texas DPS, within just a few days, encountered 36 undocumented migrants in the Del Rio, Texas, sector, 15 of whom were arrested for criminal trespass.
One trooper, during the ride-along, arrested seven people from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador who were being smuggled by a driver in Texas. Texas DPS said the undocumented migrants loaded into the driver’s vehicle in the Quemado, New Mexico area. The driver then headed up toward Del Rio, Texas, where Trooper Sandra Hernandez stopped him.
Just a few weeks ago, Hernandez stopped a cloned Lowe’s truck and arrested a man from Mississippi after finding 17 migrants hidden in a 3-foot-wide false compartment during a traffic stop. Several of the immigrants required medical attention for dehydration, and the man now faces charges of smuggling persons with the likelihood of serious bodily injury or death.
“I was not expecting so many people,” Hernandez said about the incident. “When we first opened the compartment and I could see legs, I was like, OK, maybe a few… but when we started counting and it was 17, it was like, ‘Wow, where did everyone come from?'”
That’s the second loaded semi-truck found within 48 hours in Maverick County. Previously, sheriff’s deputies in Maverick located 26 migrants locked inside a tanker attached to an abandoned tractor-trailer parked at an Eagle Pass, Texas, gas station on Wednesday. A deputy patrolling the area heard screaming and knocking coming from the trailer.
Texas DPS officials work under the state’s Operation Lone Star program, created by Gov. Greg Abbott. Since Operation Lone Star launched in 2021, troopers have made 9,730 human smuggling arrests and filed nearly 2,200 charges for the offense.