The smuggers sentenced to decades in prison 3 years after 53 migrants found dead in the back of the truck in Texas

Two smuggers condemned by federal positions in relation to the 53 migrants deaths Found at the back of a suffocating tractor-clear in Texas in 2022, they were sentenced to decades in prison on Friday.

Felipe Orduna-Torres, 32, and Armando Gonzales-Ortega, 55, will be the first of several defendants convicted in the tragedy of San Antonio, who remains the most fatal smuggling attempt in the nation through the border between the United States and Mexico. In March, a jury deliberated for Only about an hour Before condemning men of being part of a conspiracy of human smuggling that resulted in death and injuries.

Orduna-Torres, who Prosecutors described As the leader of the smuggling operation, he received two perpetual and 20 years additional chains in a third count to be treated consecutively, according to Kens Affiliate of News. Gonzales-Ortega was sentenced to 87.5 years in prison. Prosecutors described Gonzales-Ortega as the main assistant of Orduna-Torres.

Both men were also fined $ 250,000.

The 64 immigrants inside the truck had come from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and had paid between $ 12,000 and $ 15,000 each to be smuggled in the United States, according to an accusation in the case. They had reached the border city of Texas de Laredo when they were placed in a broken air-conditioning tractor for a three-hour trip to San Antonio.

As the temperature increased inside the trailer, those inside shouted and hit the walls of the trailer in search of help or tried to collect, the researchers said. Most finally passed out. When the trailer opened in San Antonio, 48 people were already dead. Another 16 were taken to the hospitals, where five more died. The dead included six children and a pregnant woman. Only 11 people survived inside the vehicle.

In an informative news session shortly after the incident, San Antonio’s chief, William Mcmanus, described the scene as “tragic beyond words.”

“I don’t understand how someone could be so insensitive to allow it to happen and run from the scene,” McManus saying.

Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega were sentenced exactly three years after the tragedy.

The researchers said that Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega worked with human smuggling operations in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and shared routes, guides, height houses, trucks and trailers. Orduna-Torres provided the address in Laredo, where they would be collected, and González-Ortega met them there.

Five other men declared themselves guilty of charges for serious crimes in the case of smuggling, including the truck driver Homero Zamorano JR., who was found hidden near the trailer in some bushes. Zamorano faces life imprisonment when sentenced in December. He Other defendants They are scheduled to be sentenced at the end of this year.

The incident is the deadliest among the tragedies that have gained thousands of lives in recent decades as people try to cross the border of the United States from Mexico. Ten immigrants died in 2017 after they were trapped inside a truck parked in a Walmart store in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 immigrants were found in a suffocating truck southeast of San Antonio.

• Immigration
• Texas
• Migrants
• Crime