smuggler's blues
Two Mexican citizens linked to San Antonio migrant deaths charged with illegal gun possession
Two men were charged on Wednesday in connection with the discovery of a big rig containing the bodies of dozens of dead migrants in San Antonio two days earlier, NBC News reports.
Juan Francisco D'Luna-Bilbao and Juan Claudio D'Luna-Mendez, both Mexican citizens, have been charged with "possession of a weapon by an alien illegally in the United States."
First responders found 46 people — including migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras — dead in the back of a tractor-trailer that had been abandoned on the southwestern outskirts of the city on Monday evening. Another 16 migrants were taken to the hospital to receive treatment for heat stroke, exhaustion, and dehydration. Five of them later died, bringing the total death toll to 51.
San Antonio police arrested D'Luna-Bilbao and D'Luna-Mendez in separate traffic stops after staking out the address that was on record for the tractor-trailer. Per NBC News, police searched the residence and found "multiple firearms in the bedrooms of both" men. They also found a gun in the center console of D'Luna-Bilbao's truck.