Fort Worth police find 79 illegal immigrants in truck
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:39 am
By IAN McCANN / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH, Texas – Officers inspecting an 18-wheeler Sunday morning in West Fort Worth found 79 illegal immigrants inside, the second such discovery in this area in three weeks.
"I wasn't expecting to see a whole truckload of people," said Officer Otto Janke, assigned to the Fort Worth Police Department commercial vehicle enforcement unit. "Nobody inside was making a sound. At first, I thought it was 15, 20, maybe 30 people. It was just packed."
No one in the trailer was injured.
The truck's driver and registered owner, 52-year-old Roger Alvin Auxter of El Paso, was taken to the Tarrant County Jail and is expected to appear today in federal court in Fort Worth. No bail had been set Sunday. He will face charges related to human smuggling, said Gloria Chávez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Border Patrol in Washington.
Officer Janke pulled over the truck about 9:15 a.m. at the Interstate 20-Loop 820 merge near the Fort Worth-Benbrook border. He asked to see the cargo in the 53-foot trailer and found the immigrants and a few bottles of water. They had been traveling since about 9:30 p.m. Saturday, when they left El Paso, and were believed to be headed to Dallas, police said.
"No one was injured," said Fort Worth police Sgt. Tim Ellis. "We had ambulances and the Fire Department out here just in case, but they were lucky."
Officer Janke and Fort Worth police Officer Robert Mills were conducting commercial traffic enforcement along Interstate 20 with Department of Public Safety Trooper John Forrest.
The trooper said Mr. Auxter's truck went past him as he was inspecting another truck in Parker County, and he was suspicious as soon as he saw it. Trooper Forrest said Mr. Auxter's truck had no Texas Department of Transportation identification number and no information identifying a trucking company, as is required. Mr. Auxter also had no valid driver's license, just a state identification card, officers said.
"Anybody doing commercial vehicle enforcement who saw this truck would have stopped it," Trooper Forrest said. "It may as well have had a big red sign saying, 'Pull me over.' This guy was set up exclusively to transport people."
Mr. Auxter's older brother, Stephen Auxter, 53, said Sunday that his brother has been estranged from the family since the late 1980s.
"He's always been the loner, always been the one who did things differently," said Stephen Auxter, who lives in Thornton, Colo.
The last time the brothers spoke, in 1988, Roger Auxter was living in San Antonio and driving a tractor-trailer. In 1984, Mr. Auxter completed two years of probation on DWI and speeding charges.
Once freed from the trailer, the immigrants were given water, milk and meals donated by the retailer Target, Joe T. Garcia's restaurant and McDonald's. Fort Worth Transportation Authority buses took them to the Border Patrol substation in Euless, where they were being processed. Their nationalities won't be released until all 79 are processed.
Sunday's incident was similar to one July 18, which also involved Trooper Forrest.
During an inspection stop, the trooper found 26 men and four women inside a trailer hauling sodas to North Carolina. The 20 Brazilians and 10 Mexicans in that trailer were headed to Fort Worth. Preliminary examination hearings are set for 9 a.m. today in federal court in Fort Worth for truck drivers Rodrigo Ureno, 28, and Rolando Ureno, 25, of El Paso.
Two months ago, a woman pleaded guilty in Houston to charges of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants in a manner that led to 19 deaths in May 2003 in Victoria. Sentencing for 26-year-old Karla Patricia Chavez-Joya is set for Sept. 13; she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
In the incident that led to the charges, more than 70 people were smuggled in by an 18-wheeler from the Rio Grande Valley in May 2003. The driver abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria when he discovered that some of the immigrants had died.
In November, Troy Phillip Dock, 32, and Jason Steven Sprague, 29, were each sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison as a result of a July 2002 incident. Two immigrants were found dead in a trailer abandoned in the Collin County town of Anna.
Ms. Chávez, the Border Patrol spokeswoman, said immigration arrests in the Southwest have increased this year despite a recent crackdown on human smuggling operations in southern Arizona.
"These smugglers continue to use this means of transportation," Ms. Chávez said. "This poses a serious concern for us because we know how hot the temperature can get in a confined space during the summer."
Undocumented Mexicans who have had no prior run-ins with law enforcement in the United States are usually taken back to their homeland shortly after being arrested. Illegal immigrants from other countries are put in deportation proceedings. In smuggling cases, officials sometimes allow immigrants to stay to testify against smugglers.
Al Día contributed to this report.
Photo by Richard Michael Pruitt / DMN
Two Fort Worth police officers inspect the trailer of a truck that carried 79 illegal immigrants Sunday.
FORT WORTH, Texas – Officers inspecting an 18-wheeler Sunday morning in West Fort Worth found 79 illegal immigrants inside, the second such discovery in this area in three weeks.
"I wasn't expecting to see a whole truckload of people," said Officer Otto Janke, assigned to the Fort Worth Police Department commercial vehicle enforcement unit. "Nobody inside was making a sound. At first, I thought it was 15, 20, maybe 30 people. It was just packed."
No one in the trailer was injured.
The truck's driver and registered owner, 52-year-old Roger Alvin Auxter of El Paso, was taken to the Tarrant County Jail and is expected to appear today in federal court in Fort Worth. No bail had been set Sunday. He will face charges related to human smuggling, said Gloria Chávez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Border Patrol in Washington.
Officer Janke pulled over the truck about 9:15 a.m. at the Interstate 20-Loop 820 merge near the Fort Worth-Benbrook border. He asked to see the cargo in the 53-foot trailer and found the immigrants and a few bottles of water. They had been traveling since about 9:30 p.m. Saturday, when they left El Paso, and were believed to be headed to Dallas, police said.
"No one was injured," said Fort Worth police Sgt. Tim Ellis. "We had ambulances and the Fire Department out here just in case, but they were lucky."
Officer Janke and Fort Worth police Officer Robert Mills were conducting commercial traffic enforcement along Interstate 20 with Department of Public Safety Trooper John Forrest.
The trooper said Mr. Auxter's truck went past him as he was inspecting another truck in Parker County, and he was suspicious as soon as he saw it. Trooper Forrest said Mr. Auxter's truck had no Texas Department of Transportation identification number and no information identifying a trucking company, as is required. Mr. Auxter also had no valid driver's license, just a state identification card, officers said.
"Anybody doing commercial vehicle enforcement who saw this truck would have stopped it," Trooper Forrest said. "It may as well have had a big red sign saying, 'Pull me over.' This guy was set up exclusively to transport people."
Mr. Auxter's older brother, Stephen Auxter, 53, said Sunday that his brother has been estranged from the family since the late 1980s.
"He's always been the loner, always been the one who did things differently," said Stephen Auxter, who lives in Thornton, Colo.
The last time the brothers spoke, in 1988, Roger Auxter was living in San Antonio and driving a tractor-trailer. In 1984, Mr. Auxter completed two years of probation on DWI and speeding charges.
Once freed from the trailer, the immigrants were given water, milk and meals donated by the retailer Target, Joe T. Garcia's restaurant and McDonald's. Fort Worth Transportation Authority buses took them to the Border Patrol substation in Euless, where they were being processed. Their nationalities won't be released until all 79 are processed.
Sunday's incident was similar to one July 18, which also involved Trooper Forrest.
During an inspection stop, the trooper found 26 men and four women inside a trailer hauling sodas to North Carolina. The 20 Brazilians and 10 Mexicans in that trailer were headed to Fort Worth. Preliminary examination hearings are set for 9 a.m. today in federal court in Fort Worth for truck drivers Rodrigo Ureno, 28, and Rolando Ureno, 25, of El Paso.
Two months ago, a woman pleaded guilty in Houston to charges of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants in a manner that led to 19 deaths in May 2003 in Victoria. Sentencing for 26-year-old Karla Patricia Chavez-Joya is set for Sept. 13; she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
In the incident that led to the charges, more than 70 people were smuggled in by an 18-wheeler from the Rio Grande Valley in May 2003. The driver abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria when he discovered that some of the immigrants had died.
In November, Troy Phillip Dock, 32, and Jason Steven Sprague, 29, were each sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison as a result of a July 2002 incident. Two immigrants were found dead in a trailer abandoned in the Collin County town of Anna.
Ms. Chávez, the Border Patrol spokeswoman, said immigration arrests in the Southwest have increased this year despite a recent crackdown on human smuggling operations in southern Arizona.
"These smugglers continue to use this means of transportation," Ms. Chávez said. "This poses a serious concern for us because we know how hot the temperature can get in a confined space during the summer."
Undocumented Mexicans who have had no prior run-ins with law enforcement in the United States are usually taken back to their homeland shortly after being arrested. Illegal immigrants from other countries are put in deportation proceedings. In smuggling cases, officials sometimes allow immigrants to stay to testify against smugglers.
Al Día contributed to this report.
Photo by Richard Michael Pruitt / DMN
Two Fort Worth police officers inspect the trailer of a truck that carried 79 illegal immigrants Sunday.