People smuggling

Human smuggling poses a big problem in Texas

Earlier this month, American police in Texas found 17 undocumented immigrants locked inside a tractor-trailer parked at a gas station about 32 km from the border with Mexico. Fortunate enough, none of these people need medical attention.

Others are not as lucky. For even hardened investigators who used to seeing death and destruction on their beats, it was a heartbreaking scene: at least nine men were found dead in a sweltering tractor trailer in San Antonio, Texas.

In all, 30 people were removed from the steaming-hot trailer on July 22, many of them suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion and clinging to life. Temperatures inside the trailer, which had no air-conditioning, reached up to 100 degrees (F), San Antonio firefighters said.

While tragic human smuggling cases are on the rise in the United States, as more people leave their home countries in search of better lives, and to escape gang violence and war.