NEWS: U.S.
Authorities announce 84 migrants found in Texas human smuggling dump truck

Texas state police said Tues­day that 84 migrants were found inside a dump truck in an attempt­ed human smug­gling attempt by officials.

No injuries were report­ed in the inci­dent on Inter­state 35 in Cotulla.

A Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty (DPS) spokesper­son said on social media that the 84 peo­ple in the dump truck­’s car­go area were from Mex­i­co and Guatemala.

The dri­ver, from Poteet, south of San Anto­nio, faces 84 counts of human smug­gling, accord­ing to the DPS.

Around 8:00 a.m., the truck was stopped for inspec­tion. Peo­ple who got out of the truck while it was stopped ran into bush­es, DPS said. 84 have been found.

It is unclear whether the alleged dri­ver has been for­mal­ly charged by prosecutors.

Texas State Police did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request Wednes­day night for details of those arrest­ed. The DPS state­ment did not say where the truck came from or where it was headed.

Cotu­la is about 70 miles north­west of the US-Mex­i­co bor­der. The dri­ver is believed to have tak­en a pri­vate road to avoid Webb Coun­ty check­points near the border.

The truck involved in Tues­day’s inci­dent appeared to have an open top and air­flow, but oth­er human smug­gling attempts were fatal.

In June, 53 peo­ple died or lat­er died in San Anto­nio after their trac­tor trail­er was found abandoned.

Accord­ing to an affi­davit filed with the crim­i­nal com­plaint, one of the two peo­ple charged with human smug­gling by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in the case told a con­fi­den­tial infor­mant that the truck­’s air con­di­tion­er had stopped working.