A border chase shows role U.S. citizens play in immigration smuggling
EAGLE PASS, Tex. — The teenagers jumped into a pair of pickup trucks and headed away from the border, speeding along through the rain-soaked night on a barren country road where few venture after dark.
One of the trucks was out front, allegedly scanning the terrain for authorities. Nine migrants who court records say had promised to pay the local teens thousands of dollars for a three-hour ride to San Antonio, a city of 1.5 million people where they could disappear, were huddled in the back of the trailing white F-250. When a sheriff’s deputy appeared — spotting the unusual caravan where normally there would only be deer, turkey vultures and packs of wild hogs — authorities say the teens floored it. One of the trucks skidded into a turn and rolled over.
“Bodies flew everywhere,” said Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe, who was there the night of June 21, calling in ambulances from other counties and searching for victims. A Mexican man was killed, a woman’s arm was amputated, and others suffered broken limbs, ankles and backs.
The chase and horrific crash north of this border town, across the Rio Grande from Piedras Negras, Mexico, has led to murder and human smuggling charges against six teens, a group that includes former high school football players, a track runner and a student active in church. It also has revealed a growing trend as the Trump administration tries to crack down on illegal immigration along the southern border: the deep involvement of U.S. citizens.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/bodies-flew-everywhere-a-border-chase-shows-role-us-citizens-play-in-immigration-smuggling/2019/10/31/67d6ba6a-ef5d-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html?wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_special_report__alert-politics--alert-national
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