Texas police say 2 found dead after responding to call about migrants ‘suffocating’ on train

Two migrants were found dead and at least 10 were hospitalized on Friday after police in South Texas received a call that they were “suffocating” in a train car traveling near the US-Mexico border.

The Uvalde Police Department said the U.S. Border Patrol was notified of the call and was able to stop the train. About 15 migrants were found inside, according to a statement from the department.

Union Pacific railroad said in a statement that people were found in two cars on the train traveling east from Eagle Pass bound for San Antonio: 12 in the container ship and three in the hopper car.

The two people who died were in the ship’s container, the statement said. At least four people were flown to San Antonio, authorities said, while others were taken to local hospitals.

The call may have come from inside the train

The condition of all those hospitalized was not immediately known. University Health in San Antonio tweeted that it has received two male patients, one in critical condition and one in serious condition.

Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez told the San Antonio-Express News that operators received a 911 call at approximately 3:50 p.m. local time from an unknown person calling for help. The train stopped near the town of Knippa, which is less than 161 kilometers from the southern border.

“We’re still trying to determine if anyone was inside the car,” Rodriguez said. “We think it came from inside one of the cars.”

Uvalde police said the Union Pacific railroad will lead the investigation. In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas suggested the deaths and injuries were linked to human trafficking and pledged accountability.

“We are heartbroken to learn about another tragic incident of migrants taking a dangerous journey,” Mayorkas said on Twitter. “Smugglers are callous and only to make a profit.”

A cause of death was not immediately clear. The highest in the region was nearly 32.2 C, and shipping containers were often hotter than the surrounding temperature.

Dozens of migrants died in tractor-trailers

Last summer, more than 50 migrants died after dozens were found in the back of a hot tractor-trailer that had been abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio. The tragedy is the country’s largest smuggling episode on America’s southern border, prompting officials to vow to step up police efforts.

Migrants regularly travel through Uvalde, causing high-speed traffic that puts schools in the area on lockdown. After the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde last May, when a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, Texas lawmakers concluded in a report that the frequency of lockdowns could lead to “a lack of vigilance” about security.

Union Pacific said it was “deeply saddened by this incident and the tragedy that has occurred at the border. We take the safety of all individuals very seriously and are working hard with our law enforcement partners to detect illegal items and people riding in or on rail cars. us.”

On the other side of Texas, a 17-year-old was charged Friday for the kidnapping of two migrants who were rescued this week from a Houston hotel by FBI agents, ending in a shootout that killed the other suspect.

The migrants were stopped on a highway northwest of Houston on Saturday and forced into another vehicle by their kidnappers, according to prosecutors. Officials have said little about what happened between then and Thursday morning, when the FBI said its agents rescued two migrants after a shooting north of Houston.