(The Associated Press circulated the following article on May 12.)
COMBES, Texas — Border Patrol agents say they found 12 illegal immigrants in a hiding place they hadn’t seen used in some time – the locomotive of a train.
Rio Grande Valley sector spokesman Dan Doty said the migrants were found Monday in a 6-by-6-by-3-foot compartment of a Houston-bound Union Pacific locomotive.
“We used to find them there quite often,” Doty said Wednesday. “But usually they’re in box cars or grain hoppers.”
The smuggler, a 23-year-old Mexican man, was among them and had a special tool to pry the compartment open. He was arrested and charged with alien smuggling.
A Border Patrol dog alerted agents to the compartment during an inspection.
Agents say the compartment was hot and unventilated.
Two of the immigrants were from Mexico, two from Honduras, two from Guatemala, and five from El Salvador.