McALLEN, Texas — Federal authorities rescued 15 illegal immigrants locked inside a cold storage trailer during a failed smuggling attempt.



The rescue took place this week at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita, about 75 miles north of the Texas border with Mexico. The Sarita and Falfurrias points are the last barriers smuggled drugs and humans must pass to make their journeys north.

According U.S. Border Patrol RGV Sector Chief Manuel Padilla, checkpoint agents discovered the group inside a locked tractor-trailer used for cold storage. The temperature was documented at 50 degrees. Prolonged exposure to the cold temperatures can lead to hypothermia and other cold-related complications.

In the case of tractor trailers, illegal immigrants are either exposed to hot or cold temperatures when smugglers try to bypass checkpoints. During the summer, the temperatures can exceed 130 degrees, leading to extreme dehydration and worse.

According to RGV Sector Border Patrol Statistics as of June 17, authorities stopped 44 tractor-trailer smuggling attempts and rescued 795 migrants in comparison to 26 attempts and 268 during the same time frame in 2017.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.