Mexico, US Border Agents Thwart Attempt to Smuggle 150 Mexicans Across Border

Migrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Del Rio, Texas, disembark within view of the US Capitol in Washington on Aug. 2, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

An attempt to smuggle 150 Mexicans into the United States in the back of a truck has been thwarted by Mexican officials with the help of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents (CBP), according to an official.

Chief Patrol Agent Jason Owens of the CBP’s Del Rio Sector on Thursday shared images of the 18-wheel truck and trailer packed with 150 non-U.S. residents who he said were “traveling towards” the United States until they were “successfully interdicted.”

“This has proven to be a deadly tactic that smugglers use. Luckily no one in this large group needed medical assistance,” he said on Twitter, referring to the 53 illegal aliens found dead inside an abandoned truck in San Antonio weeks ago.

Del Rio Sector agents also apprehended another 37 illegal aliens that same day attempting to flee from another truck in the Texas city of Del Rio.

“At approximately 5 p.m., a Border Patrol agent working near Highway 277 spotted a flatbed pickup truck, pulling a travel trailer, headed toward Del Rio. The agent followed the vehicle to the Del Rio Wal-Mart parking lot. The agent then observed two men get out of the truck and walk into the store,” CBP said in a statement.

Multiple individuals climbed out of the trailer and attempted to flee. CBP agents and local law enforcement apprehended 15 illegal aliens in a parking lot and discovered 22 people, including a family with a young child, “in visible distress as the temperature exceeded 100 degrees.”

All of the illegal aliens were identified as Mexican citizens, according to CBP.

Del Rio Sector

The Del Rio Sector of the U.S. southern border, which spans 245 miles along the Rio Grande and Lake Amistad, regularly experiences large groups of illegal aliens consisting of more than 100 individuals crossing illegally into the United States.

Over the weekend starting Friday, Aug. 12, over 1,000 individuals were apprehended by CBP agents in the Del Rio Sector.

CBP defines “large groups” as 100 or more people. The Del Rio Sector on Monday said it apprehended multiple large groups of illegal aliens over the prior weekend just after they illegally entered the United States.

On Aug. 12, a group of 214 illegal aliens crossed into the United States at 6 a.m., near the city of Eagle Pass, followed an hour later by another large group of 193 people who were found near Normandy, according to CBP.

The next day, another large group of 166 mostly single adult illegal aliens was encountered south of Eagle Pass on the U.S. side of the border.

On Sunday, four large groups totaling 811 surrendered to CBP agents after illegally entering the United States near Eagle Pass.

The Del Rio Sector accounts for around 58 percent of all large groups encountered by CBP in 2022, according to the CBP.

The Biden administration has been criticized by officials in border states for immigration policies some say are allowing illegal aliens, and drugs, to flood the United States.

Border states Texas and Arizona recently began relocating recently arrived illegal aliens to Washington, D.C., and New York City on buses in protest.

The Biden administration recently won a legal challenge to reinstate an Obama-era catch-and-release policy that allows asylum seekers arriving at the southern U.S. border to be released into the United States to await processing. Critics have said this has encouraged record-high illegal immigration, leading to what is described as a crisis at the southern border.