A Texas trucker was convicted after attempting to smuggle 124 migrants in a tractor-trailer past the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint.
During a recent two-day trial, a Laredo federal jury convicted 67-year-old David William McKeon on one count of conspiracy to transport undocumented migrants.
McKeon was arrested by border patrol agents on April 20 at a checkpoint north of Laredo along I-35. As a defense, the driver claimed he did not know there were migrants in the vehicle.
According to a criminal complaint, however, McKeon met with a man at a Popeyes Chicken parking lot in Laredo on April 16 and was offered several thousand dollars to transport a shipment from Laredo to San Antonio.
He then drove McKeon to the tractor near Highway 359 the next and told him to meet him at a nearby dirt road to pick up the sealed trailer and a false bill of lading.
He is expected to be sentenced later this year by U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo and faces up to 10 years in prison.
This comes weeks after border patrol agents discovered three migrants locked inside a toolbox. Agents discovered the Honduran migrants after a K-9 agent alerted them to the back of a black Chevrolet Silverado with a New Mexico license plate.
The truck driver, who was also a U.S. citizen, told agents he had some marijuana and a handgun with him. The agents questioned him about what was inside the toolbox and he told them he did not have keys to open it. He was then arrested after he was ordered to open the toolbox, revealing the migrants crammed inside it.
The driver was arrested and charged with conspiracy to transport, while what became of the migrants after being discovered is unknown.
The U.S. has been seeing massive migrant numbers after the Biden administration announced that it would be lifting “Title 42,” a controversial border policy implemented by former President Donald Trump back in March 2020 that allowed the border agency to turn migrants away.
Some officials have also said that the swarm of illegal immigrants has already resulted in property damage, stolen vehicles, gun violence, and other issues resulting from migrants crossing into their counties, many of which are desolate and have sparse populations.
