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AUSTIN, Texas — A commercial truck that carried dozens of migrants from near the U.S.-Mexico border to San Antonio had successfully cleared a Border Patrol highway inspection checkpoint, a senior federal law enforcement official with firsthand knowledge of the investigation told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security are rushing to piece together how a tractor-trailer carrying more than 60 people hidden inside made it to San Antonio after passing through one of the Border Patrol’s largest checkpoints nationwide: the Laredo North northbound stop on Interstate 35.
“I wouldn’t blame the agents. I think it’s just so many people coming through that people are going to get through,” a second senior Border Patrol official said in a phone call Tuesday.
Texas’s southern region of Laredo is the most popular of Border Patrol’s nine southern border regions for human smuggling activities that involve stash houses and tractor-trailers, the second official said.
MIGRANT TRUCK DEATHS PUT BIDEN BORDER CRISIS ON WORLD’S RADAR
Whereas migrants in other regions of the border cross illegally and then surrender to agents, many of those crossing near Laredo are placed in homes and detained by the cartels until transportation to their next destination is available, the second agent explained in the phone call.
Agents may have cleared the truck when it entered the checkpoint because no one was inside at the time and the group of migrants was picked up afterward. It is also possible that due to staffing shortages at the checkpoint, agents were unable to give the truck as much attention as is ideal or that law enforcement dogs did not detect people concealed inside the trailer. For example, last September, Border Patrol shut down the checkpoint and ordered all agents to a different region of Texas, leaving the highway unchecked, KGNS reported.
Hector Garza, vice president of the Border Patrol union, told KGNS at the time that “the cartels are getting a free pass throughout these checkpoints in Laredo and at the Del Rio checkpoints.”
“We’re talking about human lives. That means more and more tractor-trailer loads and smuggling events are going to be getting through this highway, I-35, in the Laredo sector,” Garza added. “That means human lives are at risk and also dangerous drugs and dangerous criminals are coming through the border.”
Trucks are not routinely internally inspected at checkpoints due to time and traffic constraints.
“Literally millions and millions of these trucks go through the checkpoints each year. The only way that you could really check effectively is you would have to open up every truck,” said the second federal agent. “And the cartels know this. That’s why they still push so much narcotics through the ports of entry — they know it is too much for us to deal with. You’re not going to bust open every truck.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D), whose district includes Laredo, confirmed to the Associated Press that the truck had passed the checkpoint but could not confirm if migrants were concealed inside at the time.
