Border agents found nearly 60 illegal aliens crammed inside of Penske box truck in an alleged human smuggling attempt, authorities said on Friday.
The Texas Department of Public Safety caught illegal immigrants loading into the back of the truck near El Paso on Wednesday, the agency said in a Facebook post. Inside the truck were 58 migrants – 49 men and nine women – hailing from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The driver, who was identified as Marquez Oviel, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, according to Fox News. Oviel was arrested and charged with human smuggling. The migrants inside the truck were handed over to border patrol.
Human smuggling attempts at the southern border have increased under President Joe Biden’s leadership and “open border” policies. Townhall covered in November how dozens of illegal immigrants were uncovered inside of a dump truck in a human smuggling attempt.
This week, footage obtained by Fox News showed a Texas National Guard soldier rushing towards the Rio Grande to help a migrant child seen drifting down the river alone. The child was rescued.
NEW: Security video from a contact shows what appears to be an abandoned migrant child on a flotation device drifting down the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, TX - alone. A Texas National Guard soldier can be seen rushing in to try to help, & we are told the child was later rescued. pic.twitter.com/KKuHeQIsWN
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) April 2, 2023
On Saturday, border agents in Texas released photos showing hundreds of migrants who were tricked by smugglers in their journey to cross into the United States. According to the New York Post, most of the migrants came from Venezuela and surrendered to officials in El Paso. Some came from Nicaragua, Colombia and Ecuador.
According to a press release from Customs and Border Protection, the migrants claimed that they received information that if they surrendered to Border Patrol, they would be allowed to remain in the United States.
“U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso Sector will continue to fully enforce immigration laws at our border,” said El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Anthony Scott Good. “People should not listen to the lies of smugglers, who often take advantage of vulnerable migrants by providing false information in order to profit from charging migrants to cross the border illegally.”
According to the press release, all the migrants were expelled under Title 42.
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