Texas car crash involving suspected human smuggler kills eight

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A two-car crash killed eight people in southwest Texas. Associated Press/Texas Department of Public Safety

Texas car crash involving suspected human smuggler kills eight

The driver of a car suspected of smuggling migrants crashed into an oncoming vehicle Wednesday morning. The driver was trying to outrun police near Batesville in southwest Texas, about 60 miles north of the Mexico border, said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez. Everyone in the two vehicles died in the head-on collision, including the 21-year-old suspected smuggler from Houston and his five passengers, several of whom were from Honduras, Olivarez said. The two people killed in the oncoming car were from Georgia.

Do accidents like this happen often? Four migrants died in June 2022 in South Texas when their vehicle crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer while being pursued by Border Patrol agents. In March 2021, 13 migrants died near the California-Mexico border when their SUV ran into a tractor-trailer.

Dig deeper: Read A.S. Ibrahim’s column in WORLD Opinions about how an “open” U.S.-Mexico border poses a national security risk.

Lauren Canterberry

Lauren Canterberry is a reporter for WORLD. She graduated from the World Journalism Institute and the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism, both in 2017. She worked as a local reporter in Texas and now lives in Georgia with her husband.