Thread: 13 die when packed pickup truck crashes in Texas

(CNN) -- A Ford pickup truck crammed with nearly two dozen people crashed in southeastern Texas Sunday evening, killing at least 13 people and injuring 10 others.
At least six of the victims were airlifted to hospitals in San Antonio and Corpus Cristi, said Trooper Gerald Bryant of the Texas Highway Patrol. All of their conditions were not immediately available, but two later died of injuries suffered in the accident.
"There were multiple occupants in the front of the cab portion and multiple occupants in the bed of the pickup truck," Lt. Glen Garrett of the state Dept. of Public Safety told CNN affiliate KIII-TV.
Border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were called to the scene.
"Based on the mode of travel -- the way that the people were in the vehicle, it's a high probability there were illegal immigrants traveling northbound on 59," Garrett said.
The F-250 was headed north on U.S. Highway 59 when it left the road near the unincorporated town of Goliad -- about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio -- and rammed into two large trees, Bryant said. The victims were both male and female and ranged in age from children to adults.
The weather was dry and clear at the time of the crash and there was no evidence of alcohol at the scene, he said No other vehicles were involved in the wreck. It was uncertain why the truck left the highway.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: At least six victims are airlifted to area hospitals, two later die
• 23 people are in the truck at the time of the accident
• Immigration agents have been called to the scene
• The weather was clear and dry at the time of the accident

13 die when packed pickup truck crashes in Texas - CNN.com

On their way to Houston, no doubt. The great santuary city of Texas and heaven for illegals.

14 Die After Overcrowded, Immigrant-Carrying Truck Crashes Near Texas Border

Published July 23, 2012
Fox News Latino

• 
  This July 22, 2012, photo shows a pickup truck that authorities say was overloaded with passengers when it veered off a highway and crashed into trees near Goliad, Texas, killing at least 13 people and injuring 10. Officials said at least 23 passengers were crammed inside the truck's cab and bed, including at least two young children. (AP Photo/The Victoria Advocate, Angeli Wright) (VICTORIA ADVOCATE2012)
  
  A pickup truck crammed with at least 23 people, many of them undocumented, crashed into a tree and killed at least 14 people.
• 
  The dead include 11 men and three women who had immigrated from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, said a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least nine people remain hospitalized, said ICE spokesman Greg Palmore.
  
  The 2000 Ford F-250, which was jam-packed with people in its cab and bed, was heading north on U.S. 59 about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio when it suddenly veered off the highway onto two trees, said Gerald Bryant, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Among the dead were two children, Bryant said.
• No other vehicles were involved.

This is the most people I've seen in any passenger vehicle, and I've been an officer for 38 years."
- Gerald Bryant, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety

Authorities say they do not know why the vehicle lost control. The names and ages of the victims has not been released.

Six of those who died were still inside the truck when emergency crews arrived to find the mangled vehicle, Bryant said.

Xeveral of the surviving victims had life-threatening injuries. Bryan did not have their official conditions but described them as "very serious." The injured were taken to various hospitals in San Antonio, Victoria and Corpus Christi. Berclair is about 100 miles southeast of San Antonio.

Border Patrol will assist with the investigation.

Crash investigators stayed at the scene into the late hours Sunday to assess the crash, which halted traffic on U.S. 59.

14 Die After Overcrowded, Immigrant-Carrying Truck Crashes Near Texas Border | Fox News Latino

Authorities investigate cause of deadly Texas truck crash and possibility of human smuggling

Published July 23, 2012
Associated Press


McALLEN, Texas – A pickup truck overloaded with illegal immigrants veered off a highway and crashed into trees in rural South Texas, killing at least 14 people and leaving nine injured, authorities said Monday.

Federal immigration agents were looking into the human smuggling aspect of the case, while public safety authorities investigated the cause of the Sunday evening crash in Goliad County, about 150 miles northeast of the border with Mexico.

The pickup crammed with 23 immigrants from Mexico and Central America crashed less than an hour's drive from the site of the nation's most deadly immigrant smuggling case, where 19 immigrants died in 2003 after being placed in a sweltering trailer.

"This is the most people I've seen in any passenger vehicle, and I've been an officer for 38 years," Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Gerald Bryant said.

The driver was among the 11 found dead at the scene, Bryant said, adding that investigators were trying to confirm his name.

Six of those who died in the crash were still inside the cab of the mangled vehicle and one more remained in the truck's bed when emergency crews arrived at the scene, Bryant said. Others were scattered on the roadway and in a ditch between the pavement and the fence line where the truck stopped. Bryant said he saw at least two young children among the dead.

There was very little in the way of belongings or identification, he said.

The victims -- men, women and children -- were carrying toothbrushes, toothpaste and changes of socks and underwear but no identification.

"It's the worst single-vehicle wreck I've worked in my 40 years in the funeral business," said Adrian Fulton, a local funeral home director who picked up the 11 people who died at the scene. Fulton estimated their ages from 8 to 30, and he said Homeland Security Investigations agents came Monday to photograph and fingerprint the dead.

The truck was registered in Houston to someone other than the driver, Bryant said. A woman who answered at the address where the truck was registered said she was the daughter of the man listed at the owner. But she said they had sold the truck and it was no longer theirs. Asked when the sale took place, she hung up.

A DPS accident reconstruction team was investigating the crash, but Bryant said it could be another week or two before its work concluded. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were working to confirm the identities of the victims and investigate the possibility that they had been smuggled into the United States.

ICE spokesman Greg Palmore said that among the 11 men and three females who died were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.

Victor Corzo, the head of legal affairs at the Mexican consulate in San Antonio, said the only Mexican citizen involved was a 22-year-old man was from Tamaulipas state. The state in northern Mexico borders South Texas.

Corzo said Monday the consulate was still working to notify the man's family.
The white 2000 Ford F-250 pickup was heading north on U.S. 59 when it drove off the right side of the highway near the unincorporated community of Berclair and struck two large trees, Bryant said. Berclair is about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio.

It is not uncommon for human traffickers to try to maximize profits by over-loading vehicles with illegal immigrants as they head north from the Texas-Mexico border. In April, nine Mexican immigrants died near the border when the teenage driver of their van crashed after fleeing Border Patrol. There were 18 people in that minivan.

In that case, six adults face a variety of federal charges and the 15-year-old driver was charged in state court with nine counts of murder.

Bryant told The Associated Press that several of the survivors of Sunday's crash had life-threatening injuries. He did not have their official conditions but described them as "very serious." The injured were taken to hospitals in San Antonio, Victoria and Corpus Christi.

Read more: Authorities investigate cause of deadly Texas truck crash and possibility of human smuggling | Fox News

We seem to be seeing more from Guatemala, USAID has a program for Guatamalans that encourages them to send their cash home.

Migrant-Backed Loans: Remittances in Guatemala
SUBMITTED BY Dasha Kuts ON Fri, April 8, 2011 11:03 | COMMENTS (0)



Yesterday’s After Hours Seminar focusing on migrant-backed loans featured two speakers from William Davidson Institute (WDI), Khalid Al-Naif and Raul Reynoso and WOCCU’s Saul Wolf.
Background

In 2010 WDI initiated migrant-backed loans (MBL)¹ with assistance from the Microfinance International Corporation (MFIC) in the United States and ACREDICOM in Guatemala. MFIC marketed the product to migrants in the United States while ACREDICOM helped process loans in Guatemala. According to this report, some of the benefits of MBLs are the following:

1. Migrants provide 50 percent of the funding with the remaining 50 percent coming from formal banks. The overall effect doubles the recipients eligible loan size.
2. The ability to obtain a loan from a formal bank enables recipients to establish credit history.
3. In Guatemala recipients stated that they were more comfortable with getting a MBL than with going to the bank to get a loan; senders stated that MBL gave them more assurance that they will receive some of their money back and that their remittances would be put to good use.

Promoting Financial Inclusion

According to the report "Two Trillion and Counting" prepared by Peer Stein in 2010, the total need for credit by all formal and informal micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging markets today is in the range of $2.1 trillion to $2.5 trillion. Among the estimated 365 to 445 million formal and informal MSMEs in developing countries, only 25-30 million are formal SMEs. Formal SMEs usually have 5-250 employees and some history of working with the formal banking sector.
The vast majority of MSMEs in the developing world consists of micro or informal enterprises. The credit gap for micro and informal enterprises around the world is about $1.4 to $1.7 trillion. Even though Latin America has the highest percentage of MSMEs with access to finance (about 60 percent) according to Peer's findings, the credit gap in that region is still very wide.
Access to Credit

It is very challenging for MSMEs to obtain credit because of the following reasons:

1. MSMEs often have no collateral and no credit history, making lending risky and unattractive for banks.
2. The remote location of some MSMEs makes transaction costs very high.
3. MSMEs have lower revenue potential, making these investments less attractive for banks.

Nevertheless, providing MSMEs with access to finance (referred to as financial inclusion) is essential to fostering sustainable economic development. When meeting in Seoul in the end of 2010, the G20 established the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) in order to emphasize importance of this issue.
Experts working with GPFI identified the following steps that need to be taken to address this issue:

1. Engage governments in establishing enabling environments that will encourage banks to lend to MSMEs by making necessary changes in the regulatory environment or by providing credit guarantee schemes to make it less risky for banks to lend to MSMEs.
2. Reduce barriers to property registry or reduce enforcement costs for lenders.
3. Address the problem of high transaction costs when banks deal with MSMEs located in remote areas through improved infrastructure.
4. Provide entrepreneurs in the developing countries with access to loans through migrant-backed loans.

Final Thoughts

Since the WDI project was recently completed, it is hard to draw conclusions. I thought that it was interesting to note that MBLs in Guatemala were offered at 19 percent interest rate while microcredit loans had rates of 22 percent. It is possible that the lower rate of MBLs reflects the fact that formal banks found MBLs to be less risky. While I think MBLs are a useful product, I think it is important to offer it not just for credit but also to promote savings. In addition, I think it would be beneficial if WDI considered offering training on financial literacy to the recipients of such loans.
-------
¹A migrant-backed loan (MBL) is an instrument that allows migrants to not just send their wages back home but to use remittances that they send to help their friends and family obtain a loan from a bank. MBLs require the establishment a separate account where remittances can be deposited. Migrants provide 50 percent of the loan, and the remaining half comes from the bank. If the beneficiaries do not pay back their loan, the bank takes the funds provided from the migrant out of the separate account and the migrants do not get anything back. Once the recipient pays their loan in full, the account is unfrozen and the migrant gets their money back.
Migrant-Backed Loans: Remittances in Guatemala | USAID Microlinks

Disclaimer: The information provided on this website is not official U.S. government information and does not represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.

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http://www.alipac.us/f12/35-illegal-...patrol-261430/

July 24, 2012 5:11 PM

15th person dies after truck crash in Texas

(AP) McALLEN, Texas - Federal immigration officials say a 15th person involved in a pickup truck crash in South Texas has died.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said Tuesday that another man died following the crash on a rural highway about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio Sunday evening.

That means 12 men were killed. Three females, including two juveniles, also died.

Eight people remain hospitalized. The victims are from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.

The pickup truck's front tire that apparently had come apart was likely the cause of the crash, authorities said Tuesday.

The truck packed with 23 people crashed Sunday evening near Goliad, Tex. Nine passengers remain hospitalized.

"More than likely the crash was caused by front right tire separation," Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Gerald Bryant said Tuesday.

The investigation into the crash continues, and Bryant would not say if the tire was old and worn or if the separation was a manufacturing issue. He did not name the tire brand.

Eleven people died at the scene, including at least two children. Three more died later at hospitals.

Bryant identified the driver as 22-year-old Ricardo Mendoza-Pineda, who died in the crash.

Mendoza-Pineda was from Mexico, Bryant said, but he could not comment on his immigration status. He said interviews with survivors indicated the truck was bound for Houston.

The Mexican Consulate in San Antonio had confirmed Monday that one 22-year-old man from Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, was among the dead. Bryant said he did not know what part of Mexico Mendoza-Pineda was from.

In a statement, the Guatemalan government said at least two Guatemalans died in the accident, a 27-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman.

Crashes of vehicles overloaded with illegal immigrants moving north from the border occur periodically, often as they attempt to evade authorities.

In April, nine Mexican immigrants died near the border when the teenage driver of their van crashed after fleeing Border Patrol. There were 18 people in that minivan.

In that case, six adults face a variety of federal charges and the 15-year-old driver was charged in state court with nine counts of murder.

15th person dies after truck crash in Texas - CBS News

2 injured in crash discharged, in federal custody

The Associated Press

Last modified: 2012-07-26T01:36:46Z
Published: Wednesday, Jul. 25, 2012 - 6:36 pm

SAN ANTONIO --Two people hurt in a deadly Sunday pickup truck crash that killed 15 people have been discharged from a hospital and detained by immigration authorities.

The truck packed with 23 suspected illegal immigrants crashed Sunday evening near Goliad, about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio.

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells the San Antonio Express-News (Two injured in Goliad County crash released from hospital - San Antonio Express-News) that a juvenile and another person were discharged from hospitals and turned over to ICE. Six other people remain hospitalized.

ICE says those killed when the overloaded pickup truck crashed into trees beside U.S. 59 were from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

2 injured in crash discharged, in federal custody - AP State Wire News - The Sacramento Bee