An 8-person smuggling gang in the U.S. is indicted for putting immigrant lives in extreme danger

　　China News Service, September 14. According to comprehensive foreign media reports, on the 13th local time, the U.S. Department of Justice released an indictment revealing that eight arrested suspects were suspected of illegally trafficking immigrants through water tanks or suitcases, putting the lives of immigrants at extreme risk. and earn millions of dollars.

Screenshot from Reuters report

　　According to CBS, the gang of eight, mainly U.S. citizens, was led by 31-year-old Erminia Serrano Piedra, known as "Boss Lady". Leader, she and her accomplices were arrested in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

　　According to the indictment, immigrants and their families from places including Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia paid the gang up to $2,500 each to illegally transport immigrants to the United States.

　　The gang hires drivers to pick up migrants near the U.S.-Mexico border, finding "hides" along the way as they transport them further to states.

However, the migrants encountered "tragic conditions" during their journey.

Drivers are understood to have hidden them in the suitcases of pickup trucks, stuffed them into the back of their trailers, and even put them in modified water tanks or wooden boxes strapped to flatbed trailers.

　　"People smuggling organizations illegally traffic migrants, often holding them in confined spaces with poor ventilation and no temperature control, putting migrants' lives at extreme risk," the U.S. Department of Justice said.

　　"People smugglers are criminals who don't care for their lives," Troy Miller, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement. "They lie to make money and convince vulnerable immigrants to hand over their life savings in exchange for empty promises to travel to the United States."

　　In fact, the massacre of illegal immigrants in the United States has never stopped.

At least 650 people will die trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021, the deadliest year since 2014, according to CNN.

This figure brutally reveals that America's immigration policy to limit the number of immigrants seeking asylum has come at the cost of many lives.

　　According to the "Guardian" report, on June 28, 2022, more than 50 smuggled migrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras took huge risks to cross the US border, but after entering the United States, they suffered from heat stroke, suffocation and dehydration. And die.