55 illegal immigrants found in truck in Texas near San Antonio airport

Dozens of illegal immigrants, including some children, were discovered in a tractor-trailer Tuesday night near the San Antonio International Airport, officials said.

Authorities were called to the North Side neighborhood around 8:30 p.m. and found 55 people inside the truck who are suspected of entering the country illegally.

San Antonio Fire Department Chief Charles Hood told reporters that all of the people appeared to be in good health, and only five were treated for minor injuries from jumping from the truck or attempting to flee the area. “This truck was air-conditioned, thank God,” he told reporters. “This truck had water. So they were hydrated.”

Last July, 10 people died as they were smuggled through Texas when 39 immigrants were found packed into a semitrailer in the parking lot of a San Antonio Walmart. The driver, 61-year-old James Matthew Bradley Jr., was sentenced to life in prison in April after pleading guilty to a county of transporting immigrants resulting in death, and a conspiracy count.

“This is a totally different outcome than we had several months before,” Hood said Tuesday. A reporter from FOX San Antonio said when asked, some of those in the group said they were from Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras.

The incident in San Antonio came less than a month after 86 people were discovered inside a tractor-trailer about 45 miles north of the border with Mexico “concealed behind some rotten produce.”

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