The death toll in the human smuggling operation involving a tractor trailer filled with illegal aliens has risen to 51 people. Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon said on Twitter that among the victims were 22 Mexican nationals, seven Guatemalans and two Hondurans.
TEXAS – […] Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores said the death toll has risen to 51 people during a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Initially, 46 people were found dead in the trailer Monday and 16 people were hospitalized, authorities said.
The death count was the highest ever from a smuggling incident in the United States, according to Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.
“This is a horror that surpasses anything we’ve experienced before,” said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “And it’s sadly a preventable tragedy.”
The Baptist Health System in San Antonio received five patients and two have since died, spokesperson Natalie Gutierrez told USA TODAY. She said three remained in critical condition.
Two people were taken to University Hospital in San Antonio, including an adolescent male and a 23-year-old woman, the University Health System said on Twitter. Both were in critical condition. (read more)
Press Conference:
The White House released the following statement:
The tragic loss of life in San Antonio, Texas that took place yesterday is horrifying and heartbreaking. Our prayers are with those who lost their lives, their loved ones, as well as those still fighting for their lives. As always, I am grateful for the swift work of all of the Federal, state, and local first responders.
While we are still learning all the facts about what happened and the Department of Homeland Security has the lead for the investigation, initial reports are that this tragedy was caused by smugglers or human traffickers who have no regard for the lives they endanger and exploit to make a profit.
This incident underscores the need to go after the multi-billion dollar criminal smuggling industry preying on migrants and leading to far too many innocent deaths. In Los Angeles two weeks ago, I announced that the United States has launched a first-of-its kind anti-smuggling campaign with our regional partners. In the first three months, we have made over 2,400 arrests, and that work will only intensify in the months ahead.
Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my Administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry. (link)
White House Spokesperson Karine Jeane-Pierre was questioned about the events and delivered a weird response claiming the border is closed:
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, 46 people died — right? — in the state of Texas, and so — and others, as I just mentioned, are still fighting for their lives.
So we’re still learning their names. Their families are still learning they lost loved ones, as when a tragic situation normally happens. We’re focused on them, on the facts, and holding the human strugglers [smugglers] who endangered vulnerable individual — individuals for profits accountable.
And we’re — and we’re focused on continuing our historic actions to disrupt dangerous smuggling networks, including through a new anti-smuggling campaign that just in the first two months resulted in over 1,800 arrests. But the fact of the matter is the border is closed, which is in part why you see people trying to make this dangerous journey using smuggling networks. (read more)
And Joe is now on record for covering and/or enabling Hunter’s human trafficking and illegally trafficked substance debt.
It wouldn’t be polite to mention that of the 16 individuals who were taken to the hospital, the medical bills of all 16 will have to be covered by Americans.
Or that the justice system should the smugglers ever be caught and prosecuted will be financed by Americans.
And that the individuals who survived the incident will live the rest of their very comfortable lives on the welfare on the back of Americans.
Or that the autopsies, cremations, transportations, communications, administrations, and every other expense of dealing with these cartel/government operations will fall on us little guys.
So, I don’t want to be impolite.
I’m with you…and no one forced them to do this.
Forgot to mention if the driver was caught, we would also have to pay for his living for the next however many years they decide not to give him as well as all his attorneys to get him out of it all.
Wow, you sound just as bad as the Biden administration, at least have some compassion.
Would you have compassion for someone who enters your home and takes all your possessions and then wants you to pay him also?
Most of them are dead. But you do you.
A person can have compassion … and still be aware that they themselves are also victims of these cartel/government operations.
They are dead because they paid coyote criminals to illegally bring them to the USA in a steel unvented 18wheeler trailer during a 100’ summer day.
I have a smidgen of compassion because it’s terrible so many people died, but it’s sort of a Darwin award situation. What do you think is going to happen if you pile hundreds of people in the back of a non air conditioned truck in the middle of summer, overseen by cartel coyotes or whatever other lowlifes oversee the operation?
I just find it cheap and fakey fake for people to turn their anger toward people who don’t give a flip about the dead illegals.
We are now getting more people illegally coming into our country PER MONTH than Putin has invaded with total troops sent into Ukraine since February 2022.
Our major cities look like war zones & we cannot resolve our own problems with our homeless & people living in poverty. Yes, many illegals might make fine, self-sufficient citizens, BUT the open borders, smuggling, sex trafficking, crimes & mass quantities of fentanyl & other illegal drugs is KILLING US only a little slower than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sympathy? I’m all out. This is NO different than Putin invading Ukraine–only the soldiers will eventually go home. These illegals will not.
If anything, someday YOUR family and descendants will be expelled from the U.S., for having stolen it from the invaders’ forefathers.
Not a lot of people have thought much about the types of snazzy legislation we’re going to get once the invaders are the majority.
There is compassion for the hellish deaths and suffering these people went through.
As to the situation they placed themselves in, look at the blood on Biden’s & fellow sycophants’ hands which opened our borders, encourages trafficking of people and drugs, and free rides to illegals, paid by American taxpayers.
In accomplishing their goal to stack the vote and courts, Biden continues to kick legal residents of this Country to the curb and has mandated them to death and despair.
This stokes my deepest compassion for us, the victims of this bloody seditious action led by Biden.
Why? Give me one good reason why I should have compassion for people who blatantly violate our immigration laws? I’ll wait.
Because they are dead.
Because they were human.
Obviously you are bothered by facts.
When you’re dying, hopefully someone will take you to a hospital.
[And I attended my first Trump Rally in Aug 2015.. How about you?]
And who should that someone be? The cartel? The driver? No, we the people. Again. You worry about your compassion and I’ll worry about mine. I have compassion for the American people who are being invaded at our southern border and forced to pay for this never-ending illegal immigration to the tune of billions of dollars a year, delivered unto us by an illegitimate president and his radical regime. THAT is who I have compassion for: American citizens being treated like shit and then being lectured about compassion if we don’t want to eat the shit.
Right, but when i die it probably won’t be from overheating in the back of a truck with a bunch of illegals in a strange foreign country i haven’t contributed anything to.
Time to ban high capacity tractor trailers and enact red flag laws for drivers.
/s
And ‘Open the Border,Ya’ll’ that should help the anti smuggling ‘campaign’.
Jeane-Pierre is stupid. Almost as stupid as those who choose to get locked inside a truck.
It’s a requisite for her post.
I didn’t think anyone could be less competent and intelligent than Psaki.
Boy, was I wrong.
Psaki was actually very cunningly good at misdirection and deflection. Very sharp.
The Haitian chick is like a bad book report delivered by a semi literate 5th grader.
a book that was never published and never read. just did not make the cut.
that’s pretty much the assessment of the joe malarkey camp.
fool’s, impostors, stooges, scofflaws and embeciles.
with makeup and thousand dollar shoes.
I just can’t understand how any American can vote for the democrat party. It’s startling to think they can watch these people conduct themselves in such serious situations and come away with the thought that “I’m sure glad I voted for this fake administration, they are so professional”.
A dem aquantence I had prior to the 2020 steal and subsequent events literally argued with me that the insurrection was obviously real and there is absolutely zero chance the election was stolen it’s not possible. And in the same breath still say the Russians stole the 2016 election. I literally told him “I can’t speak to you any more, your lack of logic and reason is so startling I can’t be around you in real life because it could jeopardize my safety. If we were ever in a real life dangerous situation you would do the wrong thing and get us both killed.”
the voters (who actually do and DID vote) for joe malarkey are frozen and paralyzed by fear and have no experience to actually work for their own dreams. They imagine a world where the central state provides all their means and purpose and so they pull the trigger.
President Trump terrifies them. Because he represents living a life that is no dependent on the state…more than a dream…to the radical demented left cowards, this terrifies them. They are not prepared nor do they desire to put the work in.
80/20. 80 perc of real work and value from 20 percent of the people. 20 percent of the people grift nearly 100 percent of their means.
Godless cowards.
the honor false idols…that world is about to come crashing to a halt soon.
stay frosty.
God Bless America
delete
Closed says the leftist “leadership”….closed my ass says alejandro mayorkas……
It is and has been WIDE OPEN for a long time now…..and they all know it.
“Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, …”
Politicians at all levels of government do this everyday, yet they can say this with a straight face.
This is a farce, if Congress, the President, all the alphabet agencies in govt. wanted that border closed off, it could be closed off, just treat the entire Southern border as though it was the Area 51 perimiter, the same perimiter that protects the business interests of the RNC and DNC’s clients: Raytheon, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed, etc.
I did private contractor work at a Naval Station for the DoD in CA some time back that was shut down except a small part where we did our work, but the rest ( a very large area ) was surrounded by barbed wire fence and heat-sensing motion detectors/cameras, really nasty signs, and was still guarded by military personel: canine’s, M-16’s/M-4’s the whole bit.
One of guys on my team was talking to one of the security personel ( Marine ? ) one day, and he was saying they could tell the difference between a rabbit, fox, deer or human from a significant distance away and based on the threat level they would decide whether to send in additional secruity personel.
So if the will was there the will to close off the border, it is possible with 20+ year old technology, many already know this.
But then, there’s the problem, .gov wants that border open and they need it open for a reason, even the GOP opposes closing it.
US Chamber of Commerce…just one of many undermining…US
Yeah, I’ve heard that argument before and believe there is truth to it, but I keep thinking that at any time Congress can raise the cap on the number of visa’s issued for “cheap farm labor” and can work with DoS to relax the visa “requirements” to enter the country at any time.
Aside from the Chamber of Commerce, I would assume there are other beneficiaries of the illegal human/drug trafficking.
I think it has to be much more than cheap labor.
U.S. Chamber has always been for free admission…..they like that.
And yet the bite-me association is complaining about climate conditions….but he welcomes even more here to help increase more climate conditions…..no common sense.
Not to mention the $700 billion USD ( correct number ? ) in infrastructure spending, not for the United States, but for the rest of the world, you know, to “counter” China.
Follow the money. Find out who is being paid by whom, and for what, and you break the code.
As George Costanza said, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.’
Term limits
Absolute term limits, 2 terms and you are done forever period, no more lifelong benefits or pension.
I want government
Of
For
And By the PEOPLE,
Not some sanctimonious azzhat who has been milking the system being bribed and wined and dined for decades.
We need a purge
ONLY if you term limit the federal employees as well…otw you are handing MORE power to the DS
term limits and an absolute, no exceptions prohibition of ALL private meetings/contact with private, for profit entities. EVERY meeting/contact between an elected representative or appointed official MUST be publicized, recorded and posted on a public website
Since when was the border closed.? Do those sneaking in know this.? .. To bad the media ignores the fact that those allowed to traipse into this country thru the actual border entry point are the only ones counted by the gumit..
The invaders counted by the gumit are less than half of those that enter this country illegally.. Do your own math
The way I read that statement from jobama faux admin, the wording was saying that “because our borders are closed it’s causing these people to do crazy things to her in.”
Therefore meaning the faux-administration wants it MORE OPEN then it already is.
Maybe I read it wrong, but that is exactly how the faux-admins statement reads to me.
of course that is the direct implication – it is OUR FAULT!!!!
If the border is closed why is our military handing out bottles of water instead of 5.56?
Not like the Feds excluding the military have billions of excess rounds that they really do not need.
And a clear coyote problem of both the four and two legged varieties.
You can mull that over with a chain of command that forbids the military from fulfilling their duties in defending our homeland. Instead, they serve as attendants and observers at the border.
Actually most of the “extra rounds” have gone to the IRS in case you forget to pay your income taxes, but not for those foreigners who refuse to even allow taxes to be taken from their pay (if they work under the table)…..they have too many children to support. At least that is the way it ‘used to work’. Not sure these days, probably more complex now
They’ve gone to the Postal Service and the Social Security Administration, too.
I wonder why?
Maybe to keep ammo out of the hands of law-abiding citizens?
Because America has no Military any more. They have all been turned into the welcome committee.
If the “border is closed”, then the Border Patrol is INCOMPETENT.
That’s the message from the top.
Wonder what Border Patrol has to say about that…
If I remember right, I thought I read somewhere that the CBP was one of the few agencies in .gov that either had their budget “cut” in the latest rounds of “Omnibus” spending bills or the number of active CBP agents at the border was reduced.
If that’s the case, then it’s not they’re incompetent, but not staffed probably and over-worked/burned out.
Adding to that, the fact that many in the CBP are watching the illegals they apprehended the night before get on buses for nice, cushy, tax-payer funded residences elsewhere in the country the next day, and being given a warm send off ( and reception ) by various religious charities and politicians like Ted Cruz, by helping to facillitate the completion of the human trafficking cycle.
They’re probably looking at that and saying to themselves, “wtf …”.
I have more confidence in the Border Patrol than I do in Congress, the White House and the military leadership, combined.
no budget adjustment for CBP….no increase in personnel level but then they are having trouble replacing losses as it is…….DC, w a pop of 700k asked for a force increase of 300+ officers yet an overwhelmed 2100+ mile border gets 0
And because of the astronomical numbers, the CBP is forced to spend more staff time on humanitarian aid than doing what they’re intended to do with looking for smuggling, illegal drugs, etc.
Just following orders.
Hotel ushers…uber drivers…uber pilots…mayorkas is THE problem….
He is one of the several hundred of problems that are fomenting and promoting this outrage, there are a lot of people behind the curtain who will never get identified that are the foundation for this.
BP is not incompetent…
I really don’t care that Jean-Pierre is a black bi-something.
The problem with it, is it’s extremely dumb, and it lies too much.
…but it’s so cute and cuddly looking like media portrayals of xi jingping cute panda thing…ever seen a REAL picture of that guy? Ragging on his fellow commies? Cute sounding name to western ears? I haven’t either…not often anyway…dude ain’t nice…
Heh, that will not get you a xmas card from your statist local government stooge office.
And we are paying this thing more money than the avg. deplorable makes. Dumbest affirmative action thing I have seen since Congressman from Ga. who thought Guam would sink if we put more troops there.
Another lie. The border is just as open as it was before this and they are busy fast tracking asylum claims for citizenship in addition to requesting the backlogged illegal alien court cases be destroyed.
“But the fact of the matter is the border is closed.” How do you eventually deal with these people. Is it treason? What exactly is it? We need somebody to be very aggressively creative in the DOJ as soon as humanly possible. The Kari Lake interview on Fox the other day was excellent. Reinforcements are on the way. And they’re not mincing words.
The current leadership in DC seem to be committing treason. They ought to be investigated, tried and when/if proven guilty, appropriately punished.
Day after day this madness continues and the mirage of America being a nation of Laws washes down the sewer, just like everything else the Bidens and our Washington DC politicians do so well.
If the border were actually closed, then smugglers couldn’t bring these people through.
So it is not closed. It is a border in name only.
BINO?
It “self identifies” as a border….
Fake administration is also responsible for the Uvalde Massacre.
At this time, I’m in favor of painting the White House brown to match the lying crap that is spewed from it on a daily basis.
Seems like bad practice for the hospitals to describe the potential witnesses against drug cartels/smugglers they have in their facilities.
I’m with George Carlin on this one.
He said that in disasters such as this one, he roots for the count to go up.
so according Ms. Jean-Pierre this tragedy occurred because the US DOESN’T have open borders!!!!!
What a crock, no body is being turned away at the border. Everyone is issued a phone, clothed, fed, medical attention if needed, given a fat wad of cash, and all-expense paid transportation to anywhere in the country they want. Why would any of them choose to pile in the back of a tractor trailer, when the blue carpet is being rolled out for them at the ports of entry?
They wouldn’t.
Could this horror be because the illegals paid a non-approved, non-cartel smuggler and they were left to die as a warning to other smugglers who try to get in on the cartels money-making schemes? This could be a warning to illegals too. Pay the cartel coyotes or die.
Just wish it was possible to transport the bodies to Biden’s door step
Ok the real question is why the open border. One possible answer is illegals are forced to pay taxes towards social security that they will never collect, true this is offset by myriad other expenses but they are covered by state taxes.
The border is closed? Who knew!
The cute little Black Barbie Doll Lesbian dimwit White House Press Secretary is without a doubt the single dumbest White House press secretary in American history. But she’s Black, a lesbian, and a female (we think…at least for now) which is why she is the new dumb as a post White House press secretary. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Dumbocrat Party rolls.
Presumably these were the “got-aways “. JoeB’s favored invaders are flying coach, not riding in tractor trailers. Or are they……….?
I think CBP should use more humane illegal alien traps. This is just cruel, a live trap so they can be released back into the wild is a much better solution.
I don’t even want to know, I just hope and pray nobody dragged any children along. If grown men chose to do such a stupid and dangerous thing, it’s bad enough.
I pray for them too.
The border is as closed as Jussie Smallett’s sphincter … so closed, you could drive a truck full of illegal aliens right through it … more like flappy-gaping OPEN!!!
The media have finally found the cartel’s plans for border crossings …
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/slavery-slave-ships-granger.jpg
when a wall saves lives.
The longer the Southern Border remains Wide Open, the deeper the Mexican Drug Cartels tentacles will grow throughout America.