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Multiple migrants have been killed in separate incidents in human smuggling attempts at the Texas border this month, Fox News has learned — in addition to the recent deaths of 53 migrants in a tractor-trailer.
Texas’ Department of Public Safety (DPS) announced Thursday that at least four migrants have been killed in a deadly vehicle crash by a smuggler in Laredo. The driver was evading law enforcement and crashed into the back of a rig — he was smuggling six migrants.
Meanwhile, dash cam video provided by DPS shows a migrant being struck and killed by a car on a highway in Brooks County during a human smuggling arrest earlier this month.
The incident, which occurred on June 10 but video of which has now just been released, shows troopers pulling over the vehicle. As troopers take the smuggler into custody, several illegal immigrants bail. While a number flee into a nearby field, one instead runs into the highway — and into the path of an approaching vehicle.
The smuggler was charged with human smuggling causing death.
TEXAS MIGRANT DEATHS: FOUR ARRESTED, CHARGED IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING OPERATION THAT LEFT 53 DEAD
Two migrants died in a crash in Palmview, Texas on June 29, 2022.
(Texas DPS)
In a separate incident, at least two migrants were killed on Wednesday during a high speed human smuggling pursuit crash in Palmview in the Rio Grande Valley. The vehicle rolled over and all were ejected.
The incidents come as 53 migrants were killed this week after an abandoned tractor-trailer filled with up to 100 migrants was discovered in the sweltering heat.
Four men have been arrested as part of the incident. The alleged driver of the truck, 45-year-old Homero Zamorano Jr., is facing one count of alien smuggling resulting in death and faces life in prison or the death penalty if he is convicted.
He was found hiding in the brush near the truck on Monday evening after trying to get away from authorities, officials said.
An ambulance leaves the scene where police said dozens of people were found dead in a semitrailer in a remote area in southwestern San Antonio, Monday, June 27, 2022.
(AP Photo/Eric Gay)
The border is facing an ongoing migrant crisis with massive numbers of migrants hitting the border each month. There were more than 239,000 migrants encountered in May, and that doesn’t include those who evade Border Patrol.
More than 62,000 migrants got past agents in March alone.
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Critics of the Biden administration tied the deaths in the tractor-trailer to the administration’s immigration policies, which they say have encouraged migrants to make the perilous journey north and try to enter the country.
President Biden on Wednesday pushed back against that criticism, promising to continue targeting smugglers and hitting out at what he called “political grandstanding.”
Fox News’ Paul Best contributed to this report.
