79 Mexicans found crammed into truck

FORT WORTH, Texas – A trucker accused of cramming 79 illegal immigrants, including 14 children, into his trailer on a hot summer day was ordered to remain jailed Monday.

Roger Alvin Auxter, 52, was stopped Sunday on Interstate 20 in Fort Worth. None of the immigrants, all from Mexico, appeared to be hurt.

Auxter, of El Paso, Texas, is being held on a criminal complaint that he transported immigrants into the country illegally. A judge ordered him detained until his preliminary hearing Thursday.

“The biggest thing that stands out is the number and the time of year,” federal prosecutor Chris Wolfe said. “They’re inside a trailer, it’s August and it’s dangerous.”

Auxter’s lawyer declined to comment, saying he had not spoken with his client.

The 53-foot-long truck was taking the immigrants from El Paso to Dallas when state trooper John Forrest noticed the vehicle did not have required state numbers and had nothing identifying a trucking company. Auxter also had no valid driver’s license, officers said.

“Anybody doing commercial vehicle enforcement who saw this truck would have stopped it,” Forrest said. “It may as well have had a big red sign saying, ‘Pull me over.’ This guy was set up exclusively to transport people.”

A Fort Worth police officer who was working with Forrest pulled the truck over for an inspection.

“I wasn’t expecting to see a whole truckload of people,” said the officer, Otto Janke. “Nobody inside was making a sound. At first, I thought it was 15, 20, maybe 30 people. It was just packed.”

He said the trailer was unventilated and hot, but the immigrants inside had drinking water and appeared to be in good shape. Outside temperatures were in the upper 70s at the time.

Wolfe said Auxter could be indicted within 30 days. He said he is unsure whether others will be charged.

The immigrants included 14 children between ages 3 and 17, according to the criminal complaint. It also said the immigrants had been taken to El Paso, then were guided into a trailer by a smuggler. Each had paid about $1,500 to the smugglers.

The immigrants likely will be returned to Mexico, police said.

On July 18, Forrest found 26 men and four women inside a trailer hauling soft drinks to North Carolina. Two truckers are accused in that case.

Last year, 19 people were found dead when a tractor-trailer packed with more than 70 illegal immigrants was abandoned at a truck stop near the south Texas town of Victoria. A smuggler pleaded guilty in June and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison at her sentencing Sept. 13.