Migrants Mauled over at Texas Bus Stop

An SUV mauled over a crowd in Brownsville, Texas yesterday and killed at least eight people, leaving 10 injured. These were largely people waiting at a bus stop outside a migrant shelter, who had gone through an arduous journey across the international border to find earning opportunities in the United States.

According to the shelter director Victor Maldonado, the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center reviewed their surveillance video on Sunday morning after receiving a all about the crash.

He said, “a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about a 100 feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop”.

The bus stop is across the street from the shelter and is not marked, and the people were sitting along the curb, since there was no bench installed.

The victims were Venezuelan men, and included people walking on the sidewalk some 30 feet from the group at the bus stop.

545,000 Venezuelan immigrants are in the United States as of 2021, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) data.

The number accounts for just a small share of the more than 7 million who have fled Venezuela since 2015, or less than 1% of America’s hispanic population.

Witnesses detained the driver until police arrived, and Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval said the did not know whether the driver intentionally hit people. But commentators are already raising the possibility of intentional violence against undocumented immigrants. 

The police identified three possible reasons for the killings: intoxication, an accident, or intentional. 

The driver was hospitalized for injuries sustained when his car rolled over on impacting the pavement, and he was alone in the vehicle. Police say they have not confirmed the drivers’ name or age, as he was being “very uncooperative” at the hospital. 

He will be jailed after his discharge, and will be fingerprinted to determine his true identity. Police also retrieved a blood sample and sent it to a Texas Department of Public Safety lab to test for intoxicants.

Brownsville has long been an epicenter for migration across the U.S.-Mexico border, and it has become a key location of interest for next week’s end to pandemic-era border restrictions known as Title 42. The Ozanam shelter is the only overnight shelter in the city and manages the release of thousands of migrants from federal custody.