Speaker 1: Hi, this is Christina and Carman and this is another
episode of his Spooky Tales, a podcast for all things spooky, hunting, places, myths, legends,
true crime in Latin America. But today today is a
very serious episode. You know, once in a while, we
wouldn't be who we are if we didn't come up
with like, do you remember when this happened? Because we
all need to know about this type situation, And that's
what's happening today. Yeah, And I mean it's a true
crime story, and true crime is bigger than true crime, right,
This is a true crime story that is about immigration
and how the United States increasingly harsh immigration policies put
lives in danger. Right, That's what it boils down to
at the end of the day, and as well as
obviously the people responsible directly responsible. But people wouldn't take
these dangerous routes into United States if they were forced
to write. Right, if you are a patron member at
the lowest tier, you just had an extra twenty six
minutes of us talking about our I don't know, random things.
Bad Bunny came up, Bad Bunny again again, again again,
and I talked about the movie my kids are making,
and yeah, you get that the lowest tier, which is
a dollar a month. So okay, and so let's get
into it, all right. So I want to preface this
by saying that I don't think I've cried more researching
and writing notes, but I felt like it was important
to revisit this tragic day because in doing that, we
honor the lives that were lost, their sacrifices, and the
grief that we all share, knowing that this could have
been us or our loved ones, knowing that many of
us and our loved ones have made similar journeys. And
with that being said, this is probably one of our
heaviest true crime stories, So take care while listening or
skip if you have to. And also quick shout out
to Elliott Woods of the Texas Monthly, who took over
two years to investigate further than this tragic day and
the initial headlines from that day and put together the
first full account of it and followed some of the
survivors and their families, the complexities of the day and
the aftermath. Everyone should read the article. It was beautifully,
beautifully written, and it'll be linked in the show notes
as well as the other sources for today's episode. On
June twenty seventh, twenty twenty two, at approximately six pm,
Roberto Quintero and his crew were working when they heard
screams and rushed towards the commotion, which took them to
Quintana Road in South San Antonio, Texas. There they found
a girl staggering near a semi truck. Once it got
to the semi truck, they found bodies upon bodies, not moving,
with swollen faces and blue lips. What about the call
nine one one exclaiming there was an eighteen wheeler with
about twenty dead people in the back. There's more than
twenty people. There's fifty people, all the while the girl
could be her screaming in the background. In total, fifty
three migrants found in the trailer died that day, twenty
six Mexicans, twenty one Guatemalans, and six Endurance. And this
left us, many of us, with questions. Who can be
blamed for this horrible incident that's been described as the
deadliest immigration related disaster. The US for its deadly immigration policies,
the smugglers, the med fuel driver working for the smugglers,
the extremely hot Texan summer. I don't know. So that
morning again On June twenty seven, twenty twenty two, about
twenty four migrants from Mexico, Guatemala and on with us,
including brothers Bergayi and Mariano Santiago e Bolito from southern Mexico,
as well as a few children and women, had been
taken by smugglers to a stash house and had been
there for over two days. Twenty four people in a
cramped and single room with zero furniture and almost no
room for anyone to lie down. There was nowhere to
bathe or shower, and the one toilet that was there
was hello grimy. They had run out of the little
food and bottled water that was given to them by
the smugglers, and everyone was wondering why they were still there,
But the smugglers were worried that a local would spot
them at informed authorities, so they forbathed the migrants from
leaving the stash house for any reason, because they had
just lost two stash houses earlier that month. Finally, a
big white box truck showed up to the stash house
to pick the migrants up, but this was hardly an
improvement in treatment for the migrants. The men who showed
up to pick them up, wore masks and screened orders
at them. They took their phone and a few water
bottles the migrants had been able to refill from the sink.
The cargo area was already packed with migrants who had
been staying at other stash houses, and the truck drove
for about ten minutes, taking the migrants to the semi truck,
which would then take them across the border. Just like
in the white truck, there were already groups of people
in the trailer of the semi truck. In total, there
were more than sixty people in the trailer. The brothers
Begaye and Mariano settled by a wall around the middle
of the trailer, and next to them were three women
from a small town in Guatemala, one who was hoping
to join her sister in Minnesota. The youngest and the
trailer were a pair of cousins, also from Guatemala, who
were thirteen and fourteen so young, who were also hoping
to join their relatives. The older cousin was a huge
fan of Messi and dreamed of being a professional soccer
player one day, but his goal was to earn money
to help his mom care for his younger siblings back home.
The oldest in the trailer was a fifty five year
old construction worker who had been living in Arkansas for
over twenty years, but had gone back to Mexico to
visit family and was now on his way back to
his wife, three kids and four grandkids. Wow, and you
know what, I died in twenty twenty two. Less people
were coming and going like that because when we were kids,
it was so normal for so many of our uncles
to come and go. I mean our grandparents did it too. Yeah,
and I feel like twenty twenty two was even more
difficult to do this. Yeah. And I didn't find the
reasons why he went, but could have been anything. Maybe
his mom died. A lot of people go back for
finder rolls or sick relatives, who knows, but he had
been living here for twenty years before that, twenty years.
Towards the back doors of the trailer was a pair
of siblings in their twenties, also from Guatemala. The brother
and sister had been caring for eighteen girl who they
had met along their journey to the border, and she
sat between them because they were comforting her. And this
was a common experience right older migrants usually care for
younger ones who are traveling alone. Reminds me of sol Yeah.
Even the stash house part remind me of Soliton because
he describes similar circumstances. I mean, didn't our mom stay
in a slash house? I think she did. Yeah. Also
in the trailer were a pair of cousins from Mexico
who were caring for an eighteen year old boy from
Mexico City whose mom had asked them to watch out
for him. Among the group was also a twenty seven
year old woman from Ondouras who was around twelve weeks pregnant.
That morning, she had been able to call her mom,
who was living in La and she had told her
she would see her soon. The group spread out as
much as they could, but they were pretty cramped in
there and became unbearable quickly. It was almost one hundred
degrees outside, making the air inside the trailer too hot.
Almost as soon as the doors were closed and the
latches from the outside were closed as well. Just before
two pm, the semi truck set off and the plan
was to arrive in San Antonio in a little over
three hours, where the migrants would then go their separate
ways to their final destinations, many with jobs already lined
up and family to reunite with. Unfortunately, things did not
go as planned. The smugglers associated with this incident, or
Felippe or Luna Torres and Jose Martinez or Vera, and
Felippe was the one who maintained contact with the cartel.
And I guess I'll explain really quick for anyone who
doesn't know the current situation in the border for migrants.
So cartel's control regies in Mexico obviously, right, and in
Novo Lao, where brothers Begay and Mariano as well as
other migrants found themselves that day to cross into the
United States though, so they were crossing from Novolo into
into Texas, and so they're the is in control. And
there are different, right, different cartels, different in different areas. Yeah,
the cartels themselves are not usually involved in the logistics
of smuggling and moving people. That's done by smaller organizations
who function more like independent contractors. While the cartels in
this case, the they extort money from every migrant trying
to cross the border. And I feel like this that
has gotten worse as time has gone on, because this
wasn't a thing and saying, and the article gets into that.
We I in my note, I don't really get into it,
but I figured we would talk about it. But yeah,
this whole process, this whole method of migrating, has only
gone worse as deterrent methods have been used by border patrol,
pushing migrants more and more out like into dangerous situations,
and as militarization of the border has gone worse and
the war on drugt has gone worse. Things got worse
hat through NAFTA. All of these conditions helped put cartels
in control, which worsened the danger that my vents are
facing over the years. Right exactly, so, the cartels know
everyone trying to cross, and they require the use of
code words to know that migrants are using their approved smugglers,
and anyone who's not using an approved smuggler is basically
usually kidnapped by cartels or faces other dangers. Right. And
the smugglers also use the code words to help them
keep track of their clients. Felippe and Jose use the
code word zero five zero flacco and this was the
code that the brothers Gayi and Mariano were using. Okay,
so that was just a little like brief explanation m HM.
Felippe and Jose were both undocumented Mexicans and had been
working as smugglers for years separately until they joined forces
around twenty nineteen to capitalize on attacking tactic known as
a book smuggling, which is to move a large amount
of people in commercial vehicles like semi trucks, which is
you know what happened here, And that meant that a
smuggling became bigger and more popular after NAFTA, because commercial
trucking between the US and Mexico became a bigger thing
after n af After okay, smugglers like Felippe and Jose
would forge documents describing the contents of the trailers, and
they would use things like detergents coffee meat sizzings to
hide the scent of hidden passengers from scent detecting dogs,
which is hard to trick those dogs their way. Since
twenty twenty one, six of Felipe and Hoss operations had
been busted by dogs. But even with being busted six times,
Felippe and Jose had successfully moved thousands of people through
the border checkpoints since working together, but not in the
hands on kind of way because they outsourced most of
the work. Wow. Yeah, there's a whole operation. Yeah, and
of course there is. I just didn't like realize it,
you know. Yeah. The man who Felippe and Jose used
to maintain their fleet of semi trucks and trailers was
another undocumented Mexican man named Juan de Luna Bilbao, who
was working as a car mechanic and got into business
with them unintentionally after one of his friends got him
like a side gig working on Hosse's personal car. Then
he kind of just fell into it with them. Right
When Felippe and Jose had a smuggling operation going on,
they would have Huan move the semi truck that they
were going to use that day from the storage lot
to the ending point of the operation and then back.
He would move it back to the storage law afterwards,
and he would get paid five hundred dollars for every
successful operation. I feel like that's not enough. No, but
all he was doing was fixing the trucks and moving
the ic. Yeah. Okay, So on June twenty seventh, around
five am, Jose called Huan and asked him to take
a red tractor hooked to a fifty three foot white
trailer to one of their usual truck stops and informed
him that their driver was already on his way. So
Juan did, and when he got there, he performed the
usual maintenance checks and he sprinkled meat seasoning and the trailer.
Then took pictures of the ID numbers of the truck
and trailer so Pelippe and Jose could forge the necessary
paperwork to get through the checkpoint. Noted that the refrigeration
unit in the trailer was malfunctioning, and he had actually
been sharing this concern with Whole several months, saying he
didn't know how to fix the issue, And three days
before the operation, Juan had Texan Josset a video of
the unit showing him that it wasn't working, and Hose
said he would get someone to look at it, but
never did. Juan's main concerns, though, were one that the
temperature would raise red flags at the border checkpoint because
of paperwork specified a certain temperature setting for whatever they
were supposedly hauling, right yeah, And the other concern was
that the temperature was higher and wouldn't cool down and
then worse the other concern without without a working refrigeration unit,
the Texas Heat June Texas heat would be dangerous for
the passengers, But Kuan had been told to not question orders,
so ultimately he did what he was told. He delivered
the trailer, filled it with diesel, and walked away. Shortly
after Juan walked away, Christian Martinez and Omero Samorano arrived
at the truck stop. Christian had been working for Rose
and Felippe for only a few months, and his tasks
included finding and hiring commercially licensed truck drivers who were
US citizens or permanent residents, since they had to be
able to get through the border checkpoints right and who
were also willing to risk getting arrested, and to bring
the person who'd be driving the semi truck to the
truck stop. Then he would be the middleman communicating with
the driver and the bosses Jsse and Philippe during the operation.
Ometo was a driver who would be transporting the migrants.
Christian had never made the kind of money he was
making now that he was working for Josse and Phelippe.
After a driver successfully made it to San Antonio, with
a load of migrants. Kistan would be paid five thousand
dollars and in less than four months he had already
made thirty five thousand. Wow. So he had made this
trip several times. And well, he wasn't the driver. He
he contracted the drivers and then he would take now
the drivers to the spot where the semi truck to
the truck stop. Basically he made at least thirty five
thousand doing this. Yeah. And then he was the MetalMan,
maintaining communication between the driver and then the ring leaders.
I guess he could say Jossein Peilippe. So yeah, and
he had made thirty five thousand dollars in the four
months he'd been working for them. Wow. Before that, Christian
had been homeless, living in his car. He had difficulties
finding and maintaining employment because he had severe cognitive disabilities
and never learned to read. And I guess read like
on a level like he could text and communicate, but
read a level of literacy. I guess yeah. Earlier that morning,
when Christian arrived to pick Ometo up, he found O
Metal smoking meth with his girlfriend. But this was normal,
nothing out of the ordinary. Both of them often used
stimulants like met and cocaine to stay awake during overnight halls.
By eleven am, Ometal arrived at the north end of
Laredo to await further instructions. This was routine because drivers
weren't sent directly to the stash houses in order to
avoid drawing attention. A bit before one pm, Ometal received
a Google Maps pin from Christian where the white box
truck was located. Earlier I mentioned the migrants were loaded
onto this white box truck. Yeah, and then from there
on he would be taken into San Antonio. About an
hour later, Ometal arrived to the border checkpoint and got
through with no issues since the border patrol agent didn't
even check his paperwork. By this point, the airror inside
the trailer was unbearable, but the migrants had been warned
to not make any noises so as to not alert
the border patrol of the presence. Ometal kept heading north
to San Antonio, and by this time the heat inside
the trailer had only gotten worse and had likely reached
temperatures higher than one hundred and forty degrees. Oh my god.
The sixty four migrants in the trailer could no longer
handle it. Mariano and beg Aye were trying their best
to maintain their composure as they heard everyone screaming around them.
In addition to the unbearable heat, everyone's eyes were burning
and their bodies were itchy because of the meat seasoning
that quant had sprinkled everywhere. Everyone had grown desperate and
they started scrambling and tripping over each other looking for
any kind of opening to let air in. But all
the screaming and movement only made things worse because it
generated more heat and depleted the already low oxygen. There
was so much sweat on the floor of the trailer
that when Mariano tried to stand, he started sliding, And
even then, Mariano managed to make his way to the
front of the trailer, where he tried to get Ometo's
attention by slamming the wall with his fists to Novel,
and he also managed his way back to his brother
Begay through the crowd. Is it like, I mean, I've
never been in a truck like this, so like could
he really not hear them or was he just like
told to ignore them? No, he heard them, He heard them,
Yeah he did. Yeah. So later during the criminal proceedings,
it was discovered that Ometo had heard the noises from
the trailer. Oh my god. Around three twenty pm, Ometo
had called Christian letting him know that he stopped to
buy a charger for his phone, and then he stopped
two more times because he heard the screaming and the
banging on the trailer walls. It was likely he knew
something was wrong because he had tried to reset the
refrigeration unit. He tried to fix the issue like when
he stopped, but he accidentally made things worse and the
unit started blowing hot air. Oh my god, and the
migrants felt a sudden rush of heat, and he heard them.
He heard the migrants screaming, and he shouted, we're almost
there at them. Around five point thirty pm, Ometo connected
with a pickup that was part of the operation and
was to take him to the drop off spot on
Quintana Road in San Antonio, and Ometo was worried now,
so he called Christian again, saying they're screaming and banging
real bad, and he asked Kistan what to do. So Kristian,
as a middleman, then asked the bosses Felippe and Josse
what to do. And they replied saying what's done is done.
Don't stop again. Meanwhile, inside the trailer, the migrants were
growing desperate, to the point that some had clawed at
the walls and ripped off chunks of the insulation in
an attempt to get fresh air, which of course didn't
work right. Others had formed the prayer circle in the
middle of the trailer. This is a part where I
started crying when I was writing the notes. My mind
you had already been crying. Yeah, okay, because the article
goes in depth about Begayi's and Mariano's not their journey
into the US, but their like lives before they came
and why they decided to come to the US. So yeah, yeah,
it's a lot. And another migrant who managed to not
have their phone confiscated by the smugglers, called someone in desperation,
pleading them to save them. Another man was begging for
water for his dying wife, and the pair of siblings
who were caring for the teen girl for fanning her
with their pocket bibles. Another woman who managed to hold
onto her bottle of water, shared her last drops of
water with the siblings on La Tingirl, and soon the
migrants began dying. They were suffering from extreme dehydration, to
the point that they stopped sweating and their skin turned
hot to the touch. They were losing electrolytes fast, which
causes symptoms like muscle cramps, brain swelling, nausea, loss of coordination, delibrium,
and seizures. Their bodies reached temperatures higher than one hundred
and five degrees and their organs started to fill agonizing.
It was agonizing, Oh my God, this is horrible. Mariano
and beg Ie held hands through it all. Beg Ae
told Mariano that he couldn't take the pain in his chest,
and he felt like he was being submerged underwater, each
breath becoming more and more laborious. He told Mariano, they're
murdering us in here, as his mouth and limbs twisted
of their own accord in a spasmic way. Madama tried
to comfort big Ae, telling him to stay strong. Big
II's last memory of those excruciating moments were his brother's words, praying,
my God, look after my heart, look after my soul,
as in his brother being his like his heart and soul.
I don't know if he was like about himself. Or
his brother, but those were his what he remembers last hearing,
Oh my god. Ometo finally arrived at the meeting spot
where the drivers, who were also part of the smuggling
operation were to pick up their set of migrants and
take them to their separate destinations. He watched as the
drivers opened the doors, but instead of the usual routine
of shouting their respective codes and collecting their clients, he
saw the drivers run back to their cars and speed away.
Ometo was panicking, so he called Gistian, who told him
to go look in the trailer. So he did with
Gristian still on the line, and he told him there
his body stacked up. Before ending the call, Guistian was
now shaking himself, so he called Josese lieutenants, who told
him to go pick Omeo up. Guistian arrived only minutes after,
and he saw a teen girl sobbing near the truck,
soaking with sweat, and a group of strangers trying to
help her. These men were Roberto Quintero and his work crew,
who Carmen mentioned at the top of the episode, who
heard the screams while they were working and ran over
to help. Once Ghistian saw that Ometo was not there,
he fled the scene. Omedo had fled before Christian got there,
and had also stopped replying to texts and calls from Christian. Luckily,
Roberto and his crew saw Ometo and were able to
describe him to law enforcement. They ran after him too,
but he got away from them. Law enforcement and purchasponders
arrived quickly within minutes. They they began to pull the migrants,
arranging them signed by side on the dirt side of
the road and pulling out survivors as they found them.
The survivors totaled sixteen, and those who died total forty eight,
including two migrants who had been found several hundred feet
away from the semi truck. So the first first responders
thought there might be others who kind of got further
away from the truck, so they searched the sides of
the road, and they found an unconscious man with the
phone line next to him. At first they thought he
was one of the victims, but this turned out to
be a Metro Oh. They unlocked his phone and saw
texts later determined to be from Christian asking where he
was at, and he was quickly detained and put under
a police supervision at the hospital where he was receiving
treatment for amphetamine intoxication an dehydration. Oh okay, I was
wondering why he was passed out. I see now. It
didn't take police too long to find the others involved.
Kuan was at the storage lot waiting to retrieve the
semi truck when police arrested him and Kisian was arrested
a couple of days later. Once he saw the news
that Metal had been arrested, he knew he didn't have
much time left, so he went back to his hometown,
which is Palestine, Texas. Did you know there was a
Palestine in Texas? I did. I didn't know that. And
there's another one to tell us. Are you serious? Wow?
But yeah, So he went back to his hometown, Palestine
to visit his mom and sister and finish the rest
of his cocaine, where he waited for the cops. Oh
my god, priorities. Yeah, it took law enforcement a year
to find an arrest. Felippe ba Jose evaded arrest. It's
likely he fled to Mexico and he's still at least
as of December twenty five. When I read the Texas
Monthly article, he was still at large. Oh wow. Philippe's
father in law was also found to be involved in
the operation and was also arrested. In total, seven people
were arrested. Okay, and I cried a lot during these notes.
But there's a line from the article where Elliot Woods
is writing about the Corner's office being overwhelmed with this
disaster that was out of their scope, about when the
authorities and first responders and whatnot were processing the scene,
and he wrote, quote, once again, the migrants were loaded
like cargo into the backs of large vehicles and hauled
the way, this time to the morgue. Oh my god,
head man the way. I cried, No, for sure, just
reading that now, it's so impactful because they had been
loaded up like this before. Yeah. And it took help
from Dallas and Austin and five days for the Corner's
office to complete the autopsies. The main cause of death
was determined to be hyperthermia overheating, but the medical examiner
determined that many of the migrants suffered from asphyxiation, from
being smothered crushed by the weight of other bodies, or
from being unable to survive on the oxygen depleted air.
While the Corners Office determined hyperthermia to be the cause
of death, they found homicide to be the manner of
death to charge the seven. Yeah, and I mean this
is what killed them. Yeah. While processing the scene gathering evidence,
the authorities collected and took pictures of the diseased belongings.
Most had nothing more than loose change in their pockets.
Many traveled with fake Mexican documents. Others had prayer cards
in their pockets. The pregnant hundred women had two pregnancy
tests in her pocket when she died. Oh my god,
they have There are smugglers codes, including one man who
had the code zero five zero Placo, who was later
determined to be Mariano. Meanwhile, Begaye was unconscious at the hospital.
Begay survived. Yeah. Yeah. Begay's wife, Maddie and his brother
saw another brother of theirs who was living in Aguadas.
Both of them were granted special visas to visit Beggaye,
and both took about a week to get to into
the United States. Wow. I'm glad they were able to
because had this been another administration st right now, I'm
sure that this would have been denied. Yeah. They learned
at the hospital that Begay's organs were shriveled like dried fruit,
and I had suffered two strokes when he had arrived
at the hospital. Oh my god. But eventually, after spending
three days in a coma, he woke up. When he
woke up, he had no memory of leaving Mexico. Wait,
did I think his brother was still alive? Yeah, yeah,
I'm telling you. I was crying. It's just heavy right now.
His first words to his wife Maddie were forgive me.
I didn't listen to you. And this was because when
Begaye had left Mexico to come to United States, he
only came to the US because Mariano had asked him
to join him. Oh my god, because Mariano wanted to
make more money because his wife, Luce Estrella was having
like several medical issues and she needed to undergo a
few diagnostic tests for a lot of the issues she
was having and they didn't have the money for it,
so he wanted to come to United States for that,
and Begaye was actually doing okay and he didn't need
to come. Yeah, just what help was brother? Yeah? Yeah?
And Ma Diana had told him, well, I'm going either way,
you if even if you don't come with me or
without him. Yeah, And so Maddie had been telling don't go,
don't go. We're doing well. Just you know, you're just
stressing yourself out. You're just going to make things worse
for everybody, not for you, but you know what I mean,
like telling him you need to work fine, but Begay
was like, I can't. I can't let him go to
my brother alone. I have to. Yeah, I have to
go with him. And Begae didn't remember that Mariano had
gone into the trailer, and he would constantly ask if,
oh my god, Mariana was okay, and if he had
gone back to Mexico. It took her days to tell
him the truth, because I mean, how do you tell
someone that. No, of course, and when she finally told him,
he cried quote with so much at that Maddie thought
something within him was shadowing Oh my god. Yeah, it's terrible.
Even when you know the part where I said they
were holding hands, I was like, no, of course he
was done. Eventually, Begai's condition improved and he was discharged
on July twelveth. Upon his discharge, a days, Department of
Homeland security agent had beg Ai sign a form saying
he was arrested and placed in removal proceedings, but was
reing released pending a hearing before an immigration judge in
three months in Atlanta, where Baii had found work and
was still planning to go. And Begai didn't really understand
the paperwork he was signing. Although he had been discharged,
he was still physically weak and cognitively impaired, and he
needed constant care. And although he had been granted temporary
work authorization, he wasn't really like good. I think you
skipped over the part about his wife having breast cancer.
Oh my god, No, you're right, okay, because I was
talking about Lusisteria's medical issues and that that was the reason,
because she was experiencing a lot of pain. That was
the reason that Marianna wanted to come to the United
States to make money to be able to pay for
those things. Unfortunately, three months after Mariano's death, she was
diagnosed with breast cancer. That's where all the pain was
coming from. Yeah, and it had spread to her bones
in her back, I think it said. And she died
on July thirty first, twenty twenty three, and her and
Mariano left behind two children. Oh yeah, I'm like, this
family has been through enough man, and so yeah, begay
was granted temporary work authorization, but he wasn't really able
to work at this point, and attorney did help him
apply for a U visa that's a specific kind of
visa for victims of crimes. But this can take years
to process. Right. Maddi was still in the United States
through her own visa that she had been granted to
visit Begai, and this visa was for thirty days, so
she helped care for Bagae and then they went on
to live with the relatives in Atlanta. After he was discharged,
Madi requested an extension to visa, which was technically called
humanitarian parole. Oh okay, and she wrote a letter explaining
her situation, submitting it to the Atlanta Customs and Border
Protection Office along with the letter of support from Begayi's doctor,
basically saying he needs someone to care for him. Right,
But her request was denied. Oh my fucking god. Yeah,
I know, I was gonna cut you off, you know,
when you were saying at least she was granted this
blah blah blah, and I'm like, but hold on, yeah,
And so after thirty days, she went back to Mexico.
And as of the time that this article from The
Texas Monthly was published in December twenty twenty five, Pegaye
was still living in the US. He was working at
a food truck long days, six days a week, sending
money to support his family. He was still suffering from
chronic pain and memory issues, and his immigration status is
basically in limbo. He doesn't know where he stands, like
with the U visa. He doesn't really know what's going on.
And the journalist asked him like, oh, are you afraid
of be deported? He's like not really, Honestly, it might
be a blessing to go back to Mexico, but he
wants to keep making money to support his family. And
he also understands that to be deported doesn't mean simply
to be sent back to Mexico, right, I means spending
who knows how much amount of time at a detention
center better known as a concentration camp. Right, and you
know what the thing could send Someone else might be like, well,
why not self deport He could still be stopped, like
if he's going to fly to Mexico. He can still
be stopped there at an airport and then take into
a constitution cap and not allowed to leave and then
spend months there, same as driving and leaving right and
driving into Mexico. So how did how could he's trapped?
He's trapped here, right? And he says, like the only
positive is that he's able to make it of money
out right now to support his family. But if it
was like up to his own terms, he would simply
walk across the bridge to go back to Mexico. What
was about to cry again? Yeah, And that's that's what
the thing we're saying right now is that he can't
even do that though, Yeah, because he could be stopped
on the way there. Yeah, Like people can't even leave
on their own terms no matter what. Now right now
the administration is saying now, yeah, and the most statistic
thing is that they're encouraging people to self deport and
then still detaining people, Yeah, because of these four profit
concentration camps. And yeah, he wants nothing more than to
be with his family and to hug Mariano's, Mardano's children,
his nephew's brothers, his everyone arrested, which I had mentioned earlier.
Were seven people in total were arrested, so everyone, including
Omelo and Kisian pled guilty, except for Felippe or Luna
Torre Suk You for Real and his father in law
who was involved minimally but involved Armando Gonzales Garcia, who
both went on to fight their charges in trial. However,
in March twenty twenty five, a federal jury in Texas
found them guilty. In September of that year, twenty twenty five,
they were sentenced to eighty three years in prison, basically
the rest of their lives, and they were also fined
two hundred and fifty thousand each. Wow. Two survivors testified
during the trial, including the teen girl whose screams alerted
the workers. Her name is Sebastiana Morales. The siblings who
were caring for her during the migration journey also survived.
Their names are Glaci and Oswilo San Hai Bacajol Wow Joste.
Luis Guzman was the other survivor who testified, and he
was I think I mentioned the former Mexican soldier who
was caring for the eighteen year old boy. Oh you,
I think I forgot to write He yeah, he was
a former Mexican soldier. Him and his cousin had basically
taken over the care of the eighteen year old boy
who his mom from Mexico City asked him to care
for him. Yes, that was him, Okay. Unfortunately, the eighteen
year old boy, Marco Antonio Velasco Velasco not survive and
neither did Hote Luis's cousin, Javier Floras Lopez. And yeah,
I mean during the trial they showed the pictures of
all the victims, and when they showed when Jose Luis
was testifying, they had a picture of his cousin Javier,
and he broke down crying on the stand. Yeah. In
twenty twenty four, a permanent memorial was constructed to honor
the fifty three migrants who died on June twenty seventh,
twenty twenty two. It consists of fifty three limestone block boulders,
each boulder representing each one of the victims, and the
boulders lead to a plaza with the sitting area and
trees for shade. Each boulder ranges in size from thirteen
to fifty five inches, corresponding with each of the victims' ages. Wow.
So the youngest victim was thirteen year old Pascual Melvin
Guaciac's feedback from Guatemala. And I think I had mentioned
earlier that his cousin was the fourteen year old from
Whatatemala who was to be ad but wanted to have
money for his yeas or wanted to make money for them, yeah,
to help raise them. Yeah, And the boulder in the
middle of the plaza lists the names of all the
victims and their countries of origin. Before the permanent memorial,
community members had enacted and maintained a mix with memorial
where they often left water bottles and gathered to like
honor the lives that were lost. Oh my god. And yeah,
that's the story of doing twenty twenty two. And if
we just had open borders like this would have never happened, Okay,
And that's kind of like what I wanted to talk
about because and it's so it's like something we're always
talking about, right, But over at Estadia Unknown our history
of podcasts, we did that series on border patrol, right,
and there was a point in time where deterrent policies
were not used, right, And I mean, oh, are you
gonna explain what the deterrent policy is kay, and deterrent
policies are basically when border patrol started using the elements
of the border lands basically to stop migrants from coming.
And so yeah, this includes putting like fances everywhere, forcing
migrants further and further into the deeper Yeah, that's a
better word. Deeper and deeper into the desert. This is
when migrants started dying in the in the deserts. They
were pushed pushed more into dangerous areas of the Rio
Grande River and so leading to more drown deaths. There's hundreds,
hundreds and thousands of people that have lost their lives
crossing into the United States because of these different policies,
and every every year it seems to be getting worse.
Right now, we talked about what is it called Operation
Lone Star Lone Star in Texas, which was what a
few years ago or was it longer ago? It started
a few years ago, Yeah, a few years ago where
Greg Abbad dot bitch. Yeah, basically he put so there's
already deterrent policies forcing migrants into the elements, right, but
he made those elements even worse by putting up essentially traps. Yeah,
death traps, death traps for people, just horrible. And so,
I mean, we talked about briefly about NAFTA. NAFTA is
what does it stand for? National American Fair Trade Agreement Agreement. Yeah,
North American, No North American, North American Fair Trade Agreement, right,
And this was basically to increase free trade among the
North Americas, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. But this
in the process fucking Mexico right, right, So it it
enabled the movement of product, but not people, right, like
fuck those people that make those products, the people that
make this capital. Right, And yeah, it made things worse
for Mexico and the border lands. It led to Machila
Loras factories I guess, yeah, where women were exploited, which
we have talked about because if there's new listeners on
this episode, first, what an episode to join us on.
But oh my god, it's a worse Sorry if this
is your But every March we cover like femicide stories
of femicides from different places in Latin America, and one
of the ones we've done was in Sua. Actually I
think a couple from sud Asquadas, but a lot of
the femicides in Suda aquadas are tied to the machiladas,
where again women are exploited, abused, Yeah, killed. And even
the use of this kind of smuggling operations didn't become
big till after NAFTA either, Right, and there are was
a time where people could just come and go in
the border a lot easier. And like here we have
an example, right there was that Mexican man, the eldest
man who died in this tragedy. He had been living
in the United States for twenty years and if he
had simply been able to come and go, he would
not have lost his life that day. Yeah, and people
have been moving freely in the America because no, of course,
the dawn of the America's migration is a natural human
As my seven year old would say, people can move
like the butterflies exactly. I'm gonna cry again, but like,
I don't know, I don't remember what episode we first did,
like Haunted Stories from the Border. Yeah, and in that episode,
I was like, yeah, open borders, bitch, I don't care.
And someone was like, you sound like someone's the comment
on spot Spotify like pretty much guess what nation? Also
nation nations. When nations were created, they genocided the indigenous people,
So I mean, yeah, you know, And I'm like, I
don't care, Like I leave your angry comment calling me stupid,
I don't care like open borders all day. Yeah, they're like,
what do you think that you actually everyone? Yeah I do.
I'm sorry to say, oh, sorry, like I do. But
that's what I'm saying. Okay, Like if there was a
humane immigration policy which consisted of open which was let
everybody in, people wouldn't stay. Some people, yes, would say here,
make their lives here, but people just like they have
always done so, they would come and go. Okay, And
the United States has basically estorted Latin America for profit
and that pushes people to come here. Everyone should read
The Harvest of Latin America. Yeah, there's a quote in there,
and I wish that this would have gotten more like
views than it did in both TAC Instagram. Not because
I want people to find me, no, because the quote
was so impactful, but basically in Encuarto intimation, the quote
was basically like, if it wasn't for the resources and
like the work of the people of Latin America, the
US wouldn't be what it was exactly. Yeah, the United
States hadn't pillaged Latin America and the world, they wouldn't
be where they're at. And so the only reason I'm
pretty sure the word pillage is in the quote it is. Yeah,
it is and yeah, And that's why I said in
the at the top of the episode, like to me,
it felt important, like, yes, this is hard to talk about,
but I feel the need. I feel the need to
talk about this because we were born by happen stance
on this side of a made up border and because
of no control of my own. You know, I am privileged, right,
but had I been on the other side, outside of
the empire, that could have been me on that trailer.
And I'm not saying I care because it could have
been me. I'm saying we should all care because the
United States forces these conditions and causes these deaths, and
so we all have blood on our hands. I'm sorry
to say. Yeah. And because we all have that, it
is I think a requirement that we learn these people's names.
We have a responsibility, yeah, to bear witness, to share
their stories, to take accountability, because the reason we have
cheap products, cheap services is because of the pillaging, right,
because of capitalism. And capitalism drives immigration. Capitalism needs immigration. Yeah,
and no matter the amount of deterrence that are put
in place, no matter the amount of like punishment that's
put in place, people will come here and they will
continue to die because of the United States immigration policies. Yeah. Yeah,
and I think on that very depressing note, if we
will end the episode. Yeah, but yeah, I don't know,
look up a local or doing something to help migrants, Like,
there's so many girl fundmes for people that have been
detained and are now out of these detention centers. And
if you don't have it, get some empathy, okay, because
you're not better. No, you're not better than the migrant
who came here in a truck, you know what I mean,
You're not better than them. No, no, but I'm I
implore someone or you listening right now to go find
one of those go fund means. There's so many. I
really don't feel like I need to link like the
hundreds that I have found. Yeah, do five dollars at
a time. But yeah, there's so many pages sharing them,
we repost them all the time, and so many local organizations,
local groups that are finding the good fight. And I'm
sure there's one year you there's no doubt. There's no
doubt there is so yeah. Other than that, don't despair. Okay, nice, yes,
and stay Spookie. We'll catch everyone next time. Bye bye.
As Booktels is hosted by Christina and Carmen, produced and
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