Texas border officials busted a man who smuggled 76 migrants into the US crammed in the back of a truck, authorities said Friday.
The Texas Department of Public Safety pulled over the driver, a Honduran national who had entered the country illegally, in Dimmit County, Texas, on Thursday, officials told FOX News.
In the back of the suspect’s rig were dozens of men packed hip to hip under a blue tarp serving as a makeshift roof, footage shows.
The unnamed driver was also in possession of meth and had “a previous criminal history of drug and weapons charges,” the department said.
He was arrested for human smuggling, and the illegal migrants were turned over to Border Patrol custody.
Border Patrol agents said the bust comes as it is gearing up for a possible surge in illegal immigrants at the US’s southern border thanks to the Biden administration ending the government’s Title 42 policy, which was used to quickly expel migrants because of COVID-19 public-health concerns.
“We are expecting to get wrecked,” a Border Patrol agent told Fox News.
The Biden administration said Friday that it will end Title 42 on May 23 in order to give the Department of Homeland Security time to prepare for an increase in migrants at the border.