Two men arrested following the discovery on Monday of dozens of dead migrants in the trailer of a large rig in San Antonio have been charged with possession of a weapon while illegally in the United States.
Criminal complaints filed separately in federal court in San Antonio accuse Juan Francisco D’Luna-Bilbao and Juan Claudio D’Luna-Mendez of “possession of a weapon by an alien unlawfully in the United States.”
Neither man faces formal allegations that they are linked to smuggling, the deaths of the 51 migrants in the big rig or the injuries of at least a dozen others.
A third person arrested is the driver of the big rig, U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told The Associated Press. It was not immediately clear if he had been charged.
D’Luna-Bilbao and D’Luna-Mendez, two Mexican citizens who said they had overstayed their visas, were arrested on Monday night. San Antonio police staked out an address in the Dellview community of San Antonio that was registered for the Big Rig and conducted separate traffic checks on the two men, the criminal complaint states.
A search of the residence revealed multiple firearms in D’Luna-Bilbao’s and D’Luna-Mendez’s bedrooms, according to the documents.
D’Luna-Bilbao also had a gun in the center console of the truck, according to the criminal complaint.
It was not immediately clear if they had legal representation. The district’s federal public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an interview Tuesday, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg called those arrested “persons of interest” pending more evidence and an investigation.
Most of the victims were dead by the time first responders arrived at the large rig, which was apparently abandoned in an undeveloped area of southwest San Antonio near the train tracks.
The death toll rose to 51 on Tuesday after at least three of the 16 people hospitalized died, officials said.
Temperatures in the region topped 100 degrees on Monday. The survivors in the truck had no water or air conditioning and were suffering from heat stroke and heat exhaustion, San Antonio Police Chief William P. McManus said Tuesday.
John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association, said federal investigators will likely find the victims crossed the Mexican border and are being picked up on the U.S. side. A plurality of the dead and injured were migrants from Mexico, officials said.
“It’s very common for these trucks to pick up from the American side, but within twenty or thirty miles of the border, so you have a lot of people crossing the border and they’re meeting at a meeting point to actually be loaded .and taken further to Texas,” he said.
Most commercial vehicles crossing the border are subject to three levels of inspections by law enforcement and border agents, consisting of x-ray scanners, devices that check for temperature differences in tires , trailer imaging and other technologies, Esparza said.
“That leads me to believe it’s less likely that they were all piled inside a truck and made it through the crossing,” he said.
Cuellar, the Texas representative, told the AP the truck drove through a Border Patrol checkpoint northeast of Laredo, Texas on Interstate 35 before it was apparently abandoned , but it was unclear if the victims were in the trailer at the time. .
Ashley C. Hoff, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, said in a statement Tuesday that her federal prosecutors are determined to do their part to bring justice to the families of the dead.
“We will continue to work with Homeland Security Investigations and local responders to identify and bring to justice those responsible for this tragedy,” she said.
Anthony Cusumano and Deon J. Hampton contributed.
nbcnews Gt