Thread: Seven arrested in Texas crash that killed 9 illegal aliens

U.S., Mexico work to repatriate the remains of victims of van accident

April 13, 2012 10:11 PM
By ILDEFONSO ORTIZ/The Monitor

McALLEN — In the wake of the rollover accident that killed nine undocumented immigrants, U.S. authorities are working with the Mexican Consulate to notify relatives and return the bodies home.

Late Tuesday, a van carrying 18 people on the eastbound Expressway 83 frontage road in Palmview rolled over near Minnesota Road. At the scene, authorities confirmed nine dead and rushed several others to hospitals.

“From the first moment, we began working with local authorities,” said Jose Manuel Gutierrez Minera, Mexican Consulate spokesman. “We visited (the victims) at the hospital to check their health status, monitor their treatment, gather information and to help meet any other need they may have.”

While the identities of the nine individuals who died were not released, Gutierrez said the Mexican Consulate is working to contact the families and formally notify them. The immigrants are for the most part from the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

“We are working with the authorities in the U.S. in regard to all of the necessary steps needed for the repatriation of the remains,” Gutierrez said.

As of Thursday afternoon, only one of the immigrants remained at a local hospital. The rest had been released into the custody of U.S. authorities.

The matter of returning to their homes the bodies of immigrants who die during their trek north is all too familiar for Mexican officials, said Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington D.C.

“Sadly enough, we face this situation in various circumstances and various locations,” Alday said.

In addition to the repatriation of the bodies, when the families don’t have the means, the Mexican government will step in to cover the funeral costs, he said.

“This is an unfortunate tragedy, but it shows that the Mexican government will deploy all the resources available to help the deceased and those injured and to bring legal, moral and economical help to their families,” Alday said.

U.S. authorities are working hard in tracking down and arresting the individuals or criminal organizations who smuggled the immigrants into the country, said Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We are putting the pieces of the puzzle together to determine who was responsible, how they came into the country, who were the members of the criminal organization or organizations,” Pruneda said. “We want to find those individuals and bring them to justice.”

Investigators are waiting on medical clearance to meet with the immigrants who survived the crash and gather further information that can be used in the investigation with some of them turning into material witnesses, she said.

The Homeland Security Investigations division of ICE is working with U.S Border Patrol, Palmview police and Mission police to solve the case, Pruneda said.

U.S., Mexico work to repatriate the remains of victims of van accident | remains, repatriate, victims - Brownsville Herald

USA TODAY

Texas teen facing murder charges in van crash

Updated 33m ago

PALMVIEW, Texas (AP) – A 15-year-old South Texas boy has been charged with nine counts of murder among other charges after a van he was driving crashed, killing nine of the suspected illegal immigrants packed inside.

The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, appeared at a probable cause hearing Monday. He was also charged with 17 counts of smuggling a person and causing serious bodily harm including death, and one count of evading.

The boy told investigators he drove the van because his family had been threatened, Palmview police Chief Chris Barrera said.

Barrera said prosecutors would decide whether to try the boy as an adult.

The nine killed in the rollover crash last Tuesday were all Mexican citizens. Barrera said the ground around the van was scattered with bodies.

The boy, a U.S. citizen from Hidalgo County, has cooperated with police since his arrest at home Thursday night.

"You could tell that he wanted to come clean," Barrera said.

He said the boy told them he had not done this before, but he did have a previous record.

Border Patrol agents had stopped the van in Palmview, 10 miles west of McAllen, when officials said some of the passengers immediately sprinted away and agents pursued them on foot, catching one. As the foot chase unfolded, the van sped off.

The agents came across the wreck three or four blocks away on U.S. 83. The scene was strewn with backpacks and water bottles, Border Patrol said.

ICE's investigation led to the discovery of a stash house where a dozen illegal immigrants were located. At least four of the six crash survivors were detained as material witnesses.

The teen was arrested along with six others who allegedly acted as caretakers at the stash house.

According to a complaint filed last week, two other suspects admitted after their arrests to participating in the smuggling of the illegal immigrants involved in the crash and those in the stash house. One said he was offered $40 per passenger to drive the van, but refused and instead put the 15-year-old in contact with the organization, the complaint says.

Texas teen facing murder charges in van crash

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Updated April 17, 2012, 2:31 p.m. ET

Woman denied bond in immigrant smuggling case

Associated Press

MCALLEN, Texas — A U.S. judge denied bond Tuesday for one of six people facing federal charges for their alleged involvement in an immigrant smuggling operation that left nine Mexican citizens dead.

Gloria Solis was ordered held on charges of harboring illegal immigrants by U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby, who noted the seriousness of the case and the suspect's tenuous ties to the area. Solis is a U.S. citizen but moved to South Texas recently.

Border Patrol agents pulled over a van April 10 about 10 miles west of McAllen. As it stopped, one person jumped from the vehicle and ran. When agents pursued him, the van sped off. It crashed just a few blocks away scattering a parking lot with bodies, backpacks and water bottles. The 15-year-old driver escaped but was arrested two days later at his home. He faces nine state murder charges.

Sixteen illegal immigrants were stuffed into the van, along with the driver and another alleged smuggler. Interviews led federal agents to a stash house in Mission where they found 25-year-old Solis and two other alleged accomplices.

Four of the six defendants waived their detention hearings Tuesday. One requested a continuance.

Assistant U.S. attorney Linda Requenez said "this wasn't your typical alien harboring case," noting that in addition to the nine killed, one remained in a coma. She said that besides the 16 people who were packed into the minivan for the fated trip from Solis' house, 12 others were still there when agents arrived. Someone with common sense would have questioned loading so many people into a small van, she said.

Carlos A. Garcia, Solis' attorney, pointed out to Ormsby that his client was a U.S. citizen with no prior criminal record. He said the tragic accident was not "reasonably foreseeable" for her.

Later, Garcia said there was almost a presumption that anyone involved in the chain could have foreseen the result.

Solis' mother, Maria Fuentes, arrived from New York Monday and was in court Tuesday morning. She owns the Mission house but said she had no idea what was going on there. She said her daughter had moved there just a couple of months earlier.

Fuentes said as a migrant farmworker she had been dividing her time between South Texas and Kendall, New York, near Rochester for about 18 years.

Woman denied bond in immigrant smuggling case - WSJ.com