Galen Scott
gscott@weatherforddemocrat.com
Two suspects were detained under suspicion of human trafficking Sunday after a citizen reported witnessing “hands, arms and fingers” emerging from a tractor-trailer traveling east on Interstate 20.
Shortly after noon, Hudson Oaks police officers located a truck matching a description provided by the caller. After obtaining consent to search the vehicle, authorities found nine men and one woman inside the trailer, reports stated.
The driver and passenger of the truck, identified as a black male and female, were reportedly in the custody of law enforcement at the Parker County Justice Center Monday.
All 10 people in the trailer were presumed to be illegal aliens and taken to the Parker County Justice Center, reports stated.
Carl Rusnok, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, said the occupants of the trailer will likely be voluntarily returned to Mexico at the earliest opportunity.
The trailer transporting the 10 individuals through Hudson Oaks was described as old and the doors as loosely secured. Whether the people inside were voluntarily smuggled or victims of human trafficking remains unclear.
According to the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, smuggling is generally with the consent of the person or persons being smuggled, who often pay large sums of money. Once in the country of their final destination they will generally be left to their own devices.
Victims of human trafficking, however, are often lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives, and then forced to work under brutal and inhumane conditions. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, trafficking often involves exploitation of agricultural and sweatshop workers, as well sex slaves and individuals working as domestic servants.
In some cases, a person being smuggled may become a trafficking victim.
“From what I understand from the officers who were there, the occupants had not been let out, or the doors opened since they were picked up in El Paso,” Hudson Oaks Police Chief Ken West said. “Their hands were hanging outside the doors, but we don’t know what their motive was for that.”
The vast majority of people who are assisted in illegally entering the United States are smuggled, rather than trafficked.
In the nation’s worst ever smuggling tragedy, 19 people perished after the oxygen supply was consumed in the back of a tractor-trailer that was found at a truck-stop near Victoria, Texas, in May 2003.
The Hudson Oaks Police Department did not file charges against the driver or passenger of the tractor-trailer. Federal authorities will likely prosecute the case, as both trafficking and smuggling humans are federal crimes.
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