Wouldn’t this make for an inspection surprise?! Yesterday, truck driver passing through Mission, Texas, found two immigrants hiding in his air dam.
According to Fox Rio 2, this is a common tactic used by immigrants who want to make it through the Falfurrias check point. Border Patrol is urging drives to check all the “nooks and crannies” of their trucks heading back out onto the road.
Truck driver Tom Cortez told KRGV that he took the air dam off of his truck for this reason. He told the station that he knows drivers who were accused of human smuggling when immigrants were found in their air dams.
“We shouldn’t be responsible if they’re on top of the truck,” said Cortez.
The problem is that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is tasked with differentiating who is purposefully attempting to smuggle immigrants and who is an unsuspecting participant in human smuggling.
Earlier this month, two men– a Mexican national and a U.S. citizen– were arrested for human smuggling and felony murder.
Cresenzo Mario Espino, 32, from Mexico, and Jose Ricardo Perez-Solis, 22, were arrested in relation to a January 20, 2012, incident in Kyle, Texas.
“According to court documents, on Jan. 20, 2012, a group of illegal aliens were hiding inside an air dam compartment of a tractor when one of the females fell from the moving vehicle that was traveling on Interstate Highway 35 in Kyle, Texas. The woman died from her injuries and was identified as Patricia Castaneda-Lozano, 25, of northern Mexico. This investigation revealed that Espino and Perez-Solis were operating an alien smuggling ring in Laredo using local truck stops to move their human cargo farther north. At the truck stops, the duo instructed the smuggled aliens to hide inside the air dam compartment which is located on top of a tractor trailer cab,” an ICE press release stated.
Drivers, how common is this?