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Trucking News with Ruthann is filled with Trucking Stories every week. This week a burning Trailer that was stolen. Driver gets arrested, Smuggling illegals in a semi truck and an update on the Canadian hockey team that was killed by a trucker.
One reason, experts say, is that entering the United States from Mexico illegally involves “two crossings.” You must first cross the U.S./Mexico border, then one of the many Border Patrol checkpoints that exist farther into the United States.
That double crossing “has increased the incentives for smugglers to operate in different ways, and on different sides of the border,” says Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, who researches immigration and border security at UT Rio Grande Valley.
“I would even say that it’s probably easier to get past the first barrier, to get in the country” says Albert Flores, a San Antonio criminal defense lawyer who represents clients in human smuggling cases.
“But once you’re in the country, most of the South Texas border is uninhabitable,” Flores says. Smugglers then face a challenge to get migrants through checkpoints that are farther inland.
Since border enforcement has increased in the last few years, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera says, more smugglers and immigrants may gravitate to transportation by truck. Trucks provide anonymity on busy Texas highways, and packing people together means the risk is concentrated and profits are greater for smugglers.
The driver of a semi-trailer that collided with a bus in an April crash that killed 16 people involved with a Canadian youth hockey team was arrested on criminal charges Friday, authorities said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, 29, was detained at his home in Calgary, Alberta, and would appear in a provincial court in Saskatchewan next week. He faces 16 counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and 13 counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily injury.
The crash occurred in Saskatchewan on April 6 as the bus was taking the Humboldt Broncos hockey team to a playoff game. Thirteen people were injured.
The truck driver had been initially detained after the crash but he was later released and provided with mental health assistance. He was not injured.
