Posted on 08/01/2002 1:41:30 AM PDT by sarcasm
EL PASO, Texas - The recent deaths of two undocumented Mexican immigrants after being crammed inside a trailer truck for hours highlights the growing number of commercial drivers willing to smuggle people from the border, according to Texas authorities.
With fees of up to 5,000 dollars per person, more and more commercial drivers for companies based in El Paso are smuggling undocumented immigrants across the country in their trucks as they transport cargo.
The two Mexicans who died of asphyxiation this weekend were crammed inside the tractor-trailer for 12 hours along with some 40 others gasping for air in temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit amid boxes of medical supplies being taken from El Paso to Dallas.
Truck drivers Jason Sprague, 27, and Troy Dock, 30, of El Paso were arrested Sunday on homicide charges and immigration violations, including conspiring to transport undocumented immigrants within the United States.
According to the federal prosecutor's office in Plano, the men could be sentenced to death or life behind bars if found guilty. Both men are being held at the Collin County jail near Dallas with bond set at 1 million dollars each.
"We are outraged that these people are making a profit off the lives of so many needy people," Socorro Cordoba, spokeswoman for the Mexican Consulate in El Paso said.
Cordoba said one of the two men killed was identified as Jose Gaston Ramirez, of the central state of Morelos, while the other has only been identified by his first name of Guillermo and was from the town of Ecatepec in the State of Mexico.
According to Cordoba, Gaston Ramirez crossed the border to see his daughter who lives in Chicago.
"The family members who were waiting for him have already been notified of the tragedy," Cordoba said, adding his relatives had been awaiting a call to inform them Gaston Ramirez had crossed the border and was on his way to Chicago.
Luciano Alcocer, one of the immigrants who survived the experience, said most of the people crammed inside the trailer lost consciousness due to the extremely high temperatures, lack of air and carbon monoxide emissions inside the container.
"There were a lot of people hallucinating; we were seeing visions of different things in there. They were screaming in desperation. It was horrible," he said in statements published by the El Paso Times on Tuesday.
Some of those packed into the container managed to make a hole in the ceiling of the trailer in their desperate attempts to get air, Alcocer said, while others tried to use their wristwatches to light up their surroundings.
Alcocer said he borrowed 1,600 dollars to pay the smuggler who was supposed to drive him to Chicago.
Alcocer, who is also from the state of Morelos, said he crossed the border on foot and was picked up at a safe house with several other immigrants by a truck driver on Friday who told them to get into the rig.
"A lot of us were saying, 'But you said that we were going to go in the cab, not back here,' and they said: 'Just get in. It's air-conditioned,'" he said.
Alcocer said that a few minutes after being crammed into the container, the inside of the metal trailer turned into an overcrowded oven. In addition to the two deaths, a score of the immigrants were hospitalized.
In the next few days, the remains of Gaston Ramirez will be returned to his hometown of Cuernavaca, where the relatives who sent him off just one week ago must make the arrangements for his burial.
The Mexican Consulate is working to determine the identity of the victim from Ecatepec to contact his next of kin.
For his part, Douglas Mosier, spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso, said the number of drivers there willing to smuggle undocumented immigrants from the border city to other U.S. destinations is growing.
In some cases, commercial drivers transport scores of undocumented immigrants across the country without the companies who own these trucks ever finding out.
These drivers take advantage of their established cargo routes and fill up the little space left in their trailers with undocumented immigrants willing to pay thousands of dollars who end up traveling in subhuman conditions, Mosier said.
"There is no doubt (immigrants) were helped by traffickers, and there is no doubt the traffickers had dealings with the drivers," Hector Raul Acosta, consul for protection at the Mexican Consulate in El Paso, told the El Paso Times on Tuesday.
Acosta attributed these activities to people trafficking mafias that operate on both sides of the border.
The two truck drivers under arrest worked for Boyd Logistics, Inc., whose officials said they launched an internal investigation into the matter.
A long spell in a MEXICAN jail, though...hmmm...
This can't be, can it? Why wouldn't they just fly here on a commercial flight for a few hundred dollars and then stay illegally. Geesh....
This is the horrible situation that many who opposed to the Mexican trucks on our roads feared would happen. Now that it's obvious that the trucks should be stopped at the border, and legal goods transferred to US trucks, I wonder if the government will admit this was a serious mistake.
Mexican jail. No air conditioning, no air circulation, desert heat.
No lawyer, no trial date, no "prisoner rights". Seems fitting.
No, never, ever, ever.
LOL!
I don't know what the answer to this problem is. You can't place ICC seals on empty trailers. Owner operators who have been sitting around a truckstop for a week or more waiting for a load will do about anything to put some money in their pockets. So, the temptation is there and the human cargo is also there.
Actually I do have an answer to this problem. Seal the border, put the military on the border, arrest and deport all illegals, and stop all government freebies to these people. That's the only way to stop this insanity. Fat chance of that happening.
The only action you are going to see is a bigger push for amnesty to keep things like this from happening.
Five will get you ten that these people will not be deported but will be allowed to stay in the US. Naw - lets not solve the problem. Lets make it bigger by encouraging more people to try the same approach.
Sure the truckers should be in jail for what they did. But where does our government fit into the equation for allowing this to happen in the first place for refusing to enforce our immigration laws?
I read TITLE 8, CHAPTER 12, SUBCHAPTER I, Sec. 1103. to say that:
He (The Attorney General) shall have the power and duty to control and guard the boundaries and borders of the United States against the illegal entry of aliens and shall, in his discretion, appoint for that purpose such number of employees of the Service as to him shall appear necessary and proper.
If the government was doing its job by keeping the aliens out of the United States we would not have people dying in the Arizona desert or at truck stops in Texas.
We do not have to write new laws or pass new legislation. The laws are already on the books. Why aren't they being enforced?
How can these "needy" people cough up 5k? Also, why aren't they outraged that these poor smucks would offer the truckers the money. After all I'm sure they're "needy" too.
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