A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Guatemalan national Rigoberto Román Miranda-Orozco to 30 years in prison for his part in a 2022 human smuggling attempt in which 53 migrants died inside a sweltering tractor trailer in Texas.
Miranda-Orozco, 39, admitted arranging travel and accommodations for two people who died and another who was seriously injured. U.S. and Guatemalan prosecutors called the sentence another step toward justice in one of the deadliest smuggling attempts along the border between the United States and Mexico.
What We Know So Far
U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia imposed the sentence. Miranda-Orozco was arrested in Guatemala in 2024 and extradited to the United States the next year. He pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to bring a migrant into the country resulting in death, to aiding and abetting bringing a migrant into the country resulting in death, and to aiding and abetting bringing a migrant into the country resulting in serious bodily injury.
The trailer left Laredo in June 2022 on a three hour ride to San Antonio. Its air conditioning malfunctioned and did not blow cool air to the people packed inside, authorities said. Prosecutors have said migrants paid up to $15,000 each to be taken across the border.
When the abandoned trailer was opened on a remote San Antonio back road, 48 migrants were dead. Sixteen others were taken to hospitals, and five of them later died, bringing the toll to 53. Twenty-one of the dead were from Guatemala.
Nearly 20 people in the United States and Guatemala have been convicted since the discovery.
What Authorities Are Saying
U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons told reporters after the sentencing that investigators found clothing the passengers had shed to cool off, along with claw marks on the trailer’s walls.
“They were literally trying to claw their way out,” Simmons said. “It was clear that they suffered tremendously in their last few hours on this earth.”
Simmons said prosecutors in Guatemala were integral in winning convictions against Miranda-Orozco and others. Guatemalan Attorney General Gabriel García Luna attended the news conference in Texas.
Differing Accounts
The accounts in the source material do not conflict. The toll of 53 combines the 48 people found dead at the scene and five who died in hospitals.
Why This Matters
Prosecutors have described Felipe Orduna-Torres as the leader of the smuggling operations inside the United States. He was sentenced to life in prison last year. His top assistant, Armando Gonzales-Ortega, received 83 years.
The case is the deadliest of the smuggling tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people try to cross the border from Mexico. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped in a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio.
The discovery horrified communities in Central America and Mexico that are accustomed to seeing young people leave to escape poverty or violence.
What Happens Next
Sentencing dates have been set for other defendants, including the truck’s driver.
Sources: NBC News, citing the Associated Press
