Texas Man Charged With Smuggling Over 100 Migrants In Locked Truck

A Texas man has been indicted by a grand jury with the smuggling of over 100 undocumented migrants in a locked trailer, a situation that some of the passengers said endangered their lives.

Concretely, Juan Manuel Aguirre was charged with three counts of conspiracy to transport undocumented aliens and transporting undocumented aliens within the United States for financial gain, U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said this week, according to Border Report.

Aguirre was arrested earlier this month after authorities found 101 migrants inside a locked trailer, Hamdani said. The figure included 12 children. He was stopped after law enforcement saw the migrants being loaded into the trailer in a parking lot in Laredo. Two of the migrants found said they had trouble breathing and even feared for their lives, according to the complaint.

The episode took place on the same month as U.S. Border Patrol agents in the El Paso Sector discovered 37 undocumented migrants hiding inside a tractor-trailer at the Interstate-25 checkpoint.

The migrants were found during a routine inspection after agents heard movement from the rear of the trailer. Upon further investigation they spotted individuals attempting to hide behind freight.

The migrants hail from different countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, and Ecuador. They were taken into custody and transported to the Central Processing Center.

The episodes are far from isolated. In fiscal year 2024 El Paso Sector agents disrupted 24 tractor-trailer smuggling events, leading to the apprehension of 387 migrants. So far in fiscal year 2025, four significant smuggling operations have been intercepted, resulting in the detention of 97 migrants.

The El Paso Sector frequently encounters smuggling operations by transnational criminal organizations, which often use commercial vehicles to hide large groups of migrants. These methods pose serious risks to the migrants' safety, as they are often packed into confined spaces without proper safety measures like seat belts or ventilation. In extreme cases, these vehicles expose migrants to dangerous temperatures, including the heat of summer and freezing winter conditions.