HOLTVILLE, California (AP) – Less than a kilometer from where an SUV packed with 25 people crashed into a trailer – killing 13 inside – a cemetery with unmarked bricks is a cemetery for migrants who died crossing the border from Mexico to remote California desert.
Authorities are investigating whether the smuggling of people was involved in the collision on Tuesday morning that killed the driver of the 22-year-old SUV and 12 passengers. The Mexican government said that 10 of the dead were Mexican citizens and that the nationality of the other three dead was undetermined.
The 1997 Ford Expedition seats were removed, except for the driver and the right front passenger, said Omar Watson, head of the California Highway Patrol border division.
The cause of the collision has not been determined, officials said, and it is also unclear why so many people were huddled in a vehicle built to safely hold eight people. But smugglers often pack people in extremely unsafe conditions to maximize profits.
The break occurred during the height of the harvest in Imperial Valley, California, which supplies much of the lettuce, onion, broccoli and winter vegetables to supermarkets in the United States. Holtville, a city without traffic lights with a lookout point in its large central square, calls itself the carrot capital of the world.
The area became an important route for illegal border crossings in the late 1990s, after intensified enforcement in San Diego pushed migrants to more remote areas. Many crossed the All-American Canal, an aqueduct that runs along the border and releases water from the Colorado River to farms through a vast network of canals.
At the back of Terrace Park Cemetery in Holtville, individual bricks – rows of them – mark the unidentified remains of people who died, many of them migrants.
In 2001, John Hunter founded Water Station, a volunteer group that leaves water jars in giant plastic drums for dehydrated migrants.
“I was trying to figure out how to prevent the deaths,” said Hunter, whose brother Duncan strongly advocated building the border wall as a congressman.
Illegal crossings fell dramatically in the mid-2000s, but the area remained an attraction for migrants and was a priority for wall-building under former President Donald Trump. The first wall design of his administration was in Calexico.
The US Department of Immigration and Customs said on Tuesday that agents from its Homeland Security Investigations unit “started an investigation into the smuggling of people (in Tuesday’s accident). The investigation is ongoing and there are no more. details currently available “.
When the police arrived about 200 kilometers east of San Diego, some passengers were trying to crawl out of the crumpled SUV while others roamed the fields. The front of the equipment was pushed to the left side of the SUV and two empty trailers were pulled out behind it.
“It was a very chaotic scene,” said Watson.
Border Patrol said its agents were not chasing the vehicle.
The people in the vehicle were aged between 15 and 53 and were a mixture of men and women, officials said. The driver was from Mexicali, Mexico, across the border and was among the dead. The 68-year-old driver of the large platform, which is from neighboring El Centro, was hospitalized with moderate injuries.
Passenger injuries ranged from mild to severe and included fractures and head trauma. They were being cared for in several hospitals. One person was treated in a hospital and was discharged.
The accident occurred around 6:15 am under clear, sunny skies at an intersection on the outskirts of Holtville, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) north of the border. Authorities said the tractor-trailer and its two empty containers were heading north on State Highway 115 when the SUV stopped in front of him on a road with a stop sign.
A California Highway Patrol report said the SUV entered an intersection right in front of the big rig, which hit the left side of the SUV. The two vehicles stopped on a dirt shoulder.
It is not clear whether the SUV passed a stop sign or stopped before entering the highway. The speeds were also unknown.
The speed limit for towing on the highway is 88.5 km / h, according to CHP officer Jake Sanchez. The other road is also 55 mph for vehicles.
A 1997 Ford Expedition can carry a maximum payload of 2,000 pounds. If there were 25 people inside, it would easily exceed the payload limit, which overloads the brakes and makes driving more difficult, said Frank Borris, former head of the National Road Traffic Safety Administration’s Defect Investigation Office.
“You will have extended stopping distances, delayed reactions to steering commands and potentially overreacting to any kind of high-speed lane change,” said Borris, who now runs a safety consultancy.
SUVs of that age tended to be heavy at the top, even without carrying much weight, said Borris.
“With all that payload above the vehicle’s center of gravity, it will make it even more unstable,” he said.
The accident occurred in the middle of green farms that grow a wide variety of vegetables and alfalfa used to feed livestock. Many workers travel daily from Mexico during the winter harvest, taking buses and SUVs to the fields of downtown Calexico just before dawn.
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Associated Press reporters Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles, Julie Watson in San Diego, Anita Snow in Phoenix, Tom Krisher in Detroit and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed.