Thread: Feds: Trailer stuffed with immigrants

BROWNSVILLE — Forty-eight unauthorized immigrants were found locked in tractor trailer at an immigration checkpoint just north of Laredo, Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday.

Wayne West, 72, of Balch Springs was charged with transporting unauthorized immigrants, according to court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Laredo. He's scheduled for a detention hearing on Friday.

The trailer was refrigerated, according to Russell Jordan, West's attorney, and all those in the trailer declined medical treatment, immigration officials said. They were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Jordan said he couldn't say much about the case because the investigation is still under way.

Border Patrol agents working with a dog trained to detect hidden people discovered the immigrants Friday at about 10:45 p.m., a Border Patrol spokeswoman said.

West, a semiretired trucker, first said he didn't know what he was transporting but later admitted he knew he was transporting unauthorized immigrants for profit and said he was working with an unnamed person, according to the court filing.

The immigrants were from Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador, said Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In May 2003, 19 people died in Victoria after being crammed into a hot trailer with about 50 other unauthorized immigrants — the deadliest human smuggling attempt in U.S. history.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_ ... 33074.html

throw him in jail. i dont care about his age.
if he new they were in there, then he is just as guilty as any smuggler who leads them over the border