Man arrested in deadly US migrant smuggling incident
The driver of a truck carrying dozens of migrants who died in suffocating heat initially tried to pass himself off as a victim before he was arrested, authorities said.
The death toll in the incident has risen to 53 after some of the people who had been trapped in the sweltering tractor-trailer died in hospital, according to local officials.
The truck was found on Monday near a highway in San Antonio, Texas, where temperatures had soared as high as 39.4 degrees Celsius.
A Mexican official and two US officials told the Reuters news agency that the driver was identified as 45-year-old Homero Zamorano.
Surveillance photos released by Mexican immigration officials captured a truck driving through a security checkpoint in Laredo, Texas on Monday.
The tractor-trailer passed through two US Customs and Border Protection checkpoints in Texas, where it was captured on security cameras, according to Francisco Garduno, head of Mexico's National Migration Institute.
Garduno told reporters the trailer did not cross the US-Mexico border with the migrants inside.
The migrants were already on US soil before entering the truck, he said.
Two Mexican men who were caught leaving a house in San Antonio were arrested by US authorities in addition to the driver. The suspects, identified as Juan Francisco D'Luna Bilbao and Juan Claudio D'Luna Mendez, have been charged with possessing firearms while residing in the US illegally.
Families waited for news of missing loved ones.
Mexicans made up about half of those who died in the worst human smuggling incident in recent US history.
Dozens of families have waited anxiously for news of missing loved ones who they fear might be dead.
According to a Mexican official, the victims include 14 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and two Salvadorans, as well as 27 Mexicans. Some of the migrants' nationalities are not known.
Most of the victims were men, with 13 women among the dead, according to the Bexar County medical examiner's office.
A source within Mexico's migration institute said the migrants likely crossed the border in smaller groups before being smuggled into a smuggled stash house on the US side and then into a tractor-trailer to be moved further into the country.
Between 6,000 and 6,800 trucks cross the Nuevo Laredo-Laredo international port of entry daily, according to Mexican customs data.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the Texas Department of Public Safety would start setting up highway checkpoints to investigate trucks driving across the state.
He accused US President Joe Biden of ignoring the crisis.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Biden called the incident horrifying and heartbreaking Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful and vowing to crack down on multi-billion dollar criminal smuggling enterprises that have helped fuel a record number of migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border since he took office in January 2021.