The bodies of six migrants, including a 14-year-old boy, were discovered Sunday in a rail yard shipping container in Laredo, Texas, after they had been locked inside for hours in temperatures that likely topped 120 degrees, authorities said Thursday.
The victims, from Honduras and Mexico, were part of a human smuggling effort, Laredo Police Chief Miguel Rodriguez Jr. said at a news conference. The container was placed on the train Saturday in Del Rio, two days after the Union Pacific freight departed from Long Beach, California. The train traveled through the San Antonio area before arriving Sunday in Laredo, a busy land port on the U.S.-Mexico border and a frequent corridor for illegal movement of people.
“They did not pass away in our city, but they were discovered here after hours of suffering,” Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño said. “We are demanding justice for these lives lost. It doesn’t matter where they came from.”
The Webb County medical examiner suspects the deaths were caused by hyperthermia, or heat stroke, a conclusion the mayor repeated. The bodies were found by a Union Pacific employee; the train’s exact route after Del Rio was not disclosed.
Rodriguez said police initially did not realize the deaths were linked to smuggling. “We did not know what we had at the beginning. We did not know that it was a human smuggling situation,” he said.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said a seventh person in the group also died. The body of a 49-year-old Mexican man was found Monday in the San Antonio area, about 150 miles north of Laredo. “He may have been either thrown from the train after being found deceased or fell from the train and (died) as a result,” Salazar told reporters.
Salazar also disclosed that San Antonio police received a call Saturday from a relative of someone in the container who had learned of the oppressive heat inside. Officers were dispatched but could not locate the container.
“This is my estimate: 120, 150 degrees inside these things,” Salazar said.
Smuggling on freight trains is a persistent concern because trains headed to the United States often slow or stop in Mexico before crossing the border, creating opportunities for people or contraband to be loaded aboard.
Two smugglers were sentenced to life in prison last year for the nation’s deadliest human smuggling attempt across the U.S.-Mexico border, in which 53 migrants died in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio in 2022.
Laredo remains one of the busiest sectors along the Mexico border. In March, about 40 people were encountered daily crossing illegally by Border Patrol agents, according to the agency’s statistics.