A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Guatemalan man extradited to the U.S. over his role in a 2022 human smuggling attempt that ended in the deaths of 53 migrants who had been transported in a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas.
Prosecutors in the United States and Guatemala described Rigoberto Román Miranda-Orozco’s punishment as another step toward justice in one of the worst smuggling attempts along the US-Mexico border. Miranda-Orozco, 39, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after confessing to organizing travel and accommodations for two people who died and one who suffered significant injuries.
Nearly 20 people have been convicted in the United States and Guatemala since the discovery of the abandoned trailer full of victims, which devastated towns used to seeing their young people fleeing poverty or violence in Central America and Mexico.
“It was clear that they suffered tremendously in their last few hours on this earth,” US Attorney Justin Simmons told reporters at a post-sentencing news conference.
People attempted to ‘scratch their way out’ of a tractor without air conditioning.
The trailer’s air conditioning failed to cool the individuals imprisoned inside during the scorching three-hour voyage from Laredo to San Antonio in June 2022, according to police. Prosecutors claim migrants paid up to $15,000 each to be transported across the US border.
When the abandoned trailer was opened on an isolated San Antonio back road, 48 migrants were killed. Another 16 were sent to hospitals, where five more died.
According to Simmons, detectives discovered garments that passengers had shed to cool off, as well as claw marks on the trailer walls.
“They were literally trying to claw their way out,” he replied.
Simmons reported that 21 of those who perished were from Guatemala.
Other defendants are still awaiting sentencing.
Miranda-Orozco was sentenced by US District Judge Orlando Garcia after being captured in Guatemala in 2024 and extradited to the United States the following year.
In July, he pled guilty to conspiracy to bring a migrant into the US, resulting in death; helping and abetting bringing a migrant into the US, resulting in death; and aiding and abetting bringing a migrant into the US, resulting in significant bodily damage, according to prosecutors.
According to Simmons, Guatemalan prosecutors played an important role in getting convictions for Miranda Orozco and others. On Tuesday, Guatemalan Attorney Gabriel García Luna addressed a news conference in Texas.
Felipe Orduna-Torres, who prosecutors identified as the leader of the smuggling activities within the United States, was sentenced to life in prison last year. Armando Gonzales-Ortega, his main assistant, has been condemned to 83 years.
More people, including the truck driver, have received sentencing dates.
The catastrophe is the deadliest of several that have cost thousands of lives in recent decades as migrants seek to cross the United States-Mexico border. Ten migrants died in 2017 after becoming trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio.
In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were discovered in a hot truck southeast of San Antonio.
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