Local officials in West Texas expended a costly effort to rescue a group of migrants locked inside a grain-hopper rail car. The migrants were locked inside the rail car with no means of escape without assistance.
A Border Patrol K-9 team carrying out train inspections in the Del Rio Sector found a toddler and his mother locked inside a grain-hopper rail car. The mother and son were without food or water in triple-digit temperatures.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents continue to find migrants being smuggled dangerously inside grain hopper rail cars. On July 13, agents found a group that included an unaccompanied child.
Border Patrol agents in the Laredo and Del Rio Sectors found more than 40 migrants being smuggled inside grain hoppers and other rail cars near the Texas-Mexico border. The practice of smuggling migrants inside these sealed containers places the migrants in life-threatening conditions.
As with most metrics used to measure activity during the ongoing migration crisis, Border Patrol is experiencing a surge in rail car smuggling. In Uvalde, Texas, arrests of migrants on trains are surging at unprecedented levels. On some days, more migrants are apprehended on a single train than were seen in entire months in previous years.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents discovered a group of 25 migrants locked inside a grain hopper rail car near Hebbronville, Texas, over the weekend.
Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents discovered 24 migrants hiding inside a grain hopper rail car near Robstown, Texas, on Monday morning. The migrants appeared to have boarded the train near Laredo, about 120 miles away.
Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents found a group of migrants packed into three grain-hopper railcars near Uvalde, Texas. Migrants attempting to sneak past Border Patrol agents frequently risk injury or death by utilizing railcars for transportation into the U.S. interior after illegally crossing the border from Mexico.