By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: Lucia Alcocer, who lives in Carrollton, says she got to spend about 20 minutes at Methodist Hospital with her brother Luciano, before authorities took him into custody. He told her it was almost impossible to breathe in the sweltering truck, so the group broke open boxes looking for tubes to get air in the trailer. It worked because the compartment contained medical supplies.
Lucia Alcocer, sister of Luciano, smuggling victim, through interpreter: This is what caught the attention of the oncoming cars. The cars had been honking, the cars behind them, to alert the driver to what was going on.
Zeeble: Marisa Berlanga, with the volunteer organization Amigas de Mexico, translated for Alcocer.
Alcocer/Berlanga: Another important comment: she had never seen anyone so desperately drink their urine, trying to maintain alive and have liquid in them. She said that he mentioned that and was pretty weak.
Zeeble: Alcocer says her brother, who's 41 with a wife and two daughters, is from Mexico City and had never before been to the U.S. before. She didn't even know he was coming. In the hospital, he told her he'd hoped to find temporary work as a carpenter. But now, he just wants to go home.
Alcocer/Berlanga: He thought he was reborn, he was given a second chance.
Zeeble: He'll get that chance once he and the others are questioned by the I-N-S. The agency says it doesn't intend to press charges. If Alcocer and the rest choose, they could end up staying here legally, under a 2-year-old law which gives special visas to those who provide information about crimes, and to victims of human smuggling and trafficking. Carl Baldwin is a New York immigration attorney and author.
Carl Baldwin, immigration attorney: They'd be given a chance to stay here because they'd then be witnesses in a criminal prosecution. The purpose of the law is to sock it to the traffickers and to protect victims of trafficking.
Zeeble: Baldwin isn't sure if the immigrants have to testify in order to be eligible for the visas, because the law is so new and untested. Officials with the Department of Justice and the I-N-S don't know either. But they do know a little about the two men arrested. 30-year-old Troy Philip Dock and 27-year-old Jason Sprague are a truck driving team from El Paso, according to the U.S. attorney's office. The pair allegedly accepted thousands of dollars for transporting human cargo to Dallas and other destinations in the U.S. In addition to state murder charges, they face 4 federal charges, among them transporting, concealing and harboring illegal aliens, and conspiring to do so. They haven't yet been taken into federal custody. Sprague's attorney, Gregory Brewer, says his client hasn't even pleaded yet, but he expects Jason Sprague to plead not guilty. The attorney says he's still gathering information on the case.
Greg Brewer, Sprague's attorney: You and me are in the same boat because I don't know the evidence the state has.
Zeeble: If found guilty, Sprague and Dock face a maximum sentence of life in prison or death. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
To contact Bill Zeeble, please send emails to bzeeble@kera.org.