In the 2022 incident, 53 migrants died after being trapped inside a tractor-trailer in dangerously high temperatures.
Published October 21, 2026
A Guatemalan man has been sentenced to 30 years in a US prison for his role in a people-smuggling operation that killed 53 migrants trapped in a truck. The tragedy was said to be one of the deadliest of its kind to occur along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent history.
On Tuesday, more than a year after he was extradited from Guatemala in March 2025, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Rigoberto Ramon Miranda Orozco, 39, to 30 years in prison.
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He was first arrested in Guatemala in August 2024 as part of a cross-border effort to dismantle human smuggling networks.
The charges stem from a fatal accident that occurred on June 27, 2022. Emergency services found dozens of people trapped inside an abandoned truck in a remote area south of San Antonio, Texas, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
A total of 64 migrants endured a long journey starting in Guatemala, passing through Mexico and crossing the border into the United States.
By the time the truck had traveled the 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Laredo, Texas, to San Antonio, prosecutors claimed the air conditioning had stopped working. Temperatures were approaching 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius) when the truck was discovered.
Forty-eight people were pronounced dead at the scene, and a further five died while receiving emergency treatment from heatstroke and dehydration.
The dead included six children and one pregnant woman. Twenty-one of the deaths were Guatemalan nationals.
Miranda Orozco acknowledged arranging travel and accommodation for two of the migrants killed in the truck and one who survived but was seriously injured.
He pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to bring immigrants into the United States resulting in their death and aiding and abetting the illegal entry of immigrants resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
Miranda Orozco is among a group of about 20 people sentenced in the United States and Guatemala in connection with the tragedy, according to the Associated Press.
Felipe Orduna Torres, identified as the leader of the U.S. operation, was sentenced to life in prison in June 2025 in federal court in San Antonio.
Armando Gonzalez Ortega, described by prosecutors as Orduna Torres’ chief of staff, was sentenced to 83 years in prison.
Additional lawsuits are pending, including one against the truck driver.
Investigators found signs of a passenger desperately trying to escape from the abandoned truck, prosecutors said. Some people reportedly took off their clothes. Meanwhile, scratch marks on the interior of the trailer suggested that some people may have scratched at the walls in a futile attempt to escape.
Prosecutors said the passengers paid up to $15,000 to cross the border.
“It’s clear that these men suffered tremendously in their final hours on this earth,” U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons told reporters at a news conference Tuesday after the sentencing.
Interstate 35, near where the truck was found, runs through San Antonio from the Mexican border.
Jack Staton, a former senior official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told Reuters at the time that he believed it was a popular smuggling corridor because of the heavy truck traffic.
President Donald Trump’s administration has cited the need to end human trafficking as the rationale for cracking down on illegal immigrants crossing the southern border.
But critics say heavy-handed enforcement tactics could encourage migrants to try to cross the border irregularly in more dangerous ways.
