Pharr police arrested two men after one of them called police to tell them they were abandoning a tractor-trailer with 22 people inside at a specific gas station, according to a criminal complaint.
Guillermo Salinas, born in 1996, and Jose Luis Peña III, born in 1997, were charged with bringing in and harboring people illegally present in the United States.
According to the complaint, Pharr police received a call at about 4:55 a.m. on Oct. 20 from a man who wanted to turn in a cargo trailer with about 20 migrants onboard. He told police he’d leave the truck and trailer at a specific gas station in Pharr.
When police arrived, officers found an abandoned blue Chevrolet Silverado with an unlocked cargo trailer attached to it.
When they opened it, they found 22 people inside but no signs of the driver, the complaint said. All of the migrants were arrested and taken to the McAllen Border Patrol Station
Police found Salinas after he called police later that day to ask about a cargo trailer he rented Oct. 19.
Salinas told police he had turned it over to a man named “Armando” that same day, according to the document.
Police were able to confirm that Salinas rented the trailer after speaking to its rental owner and reviewing surveillance footage.
Salinas then led police to Peña, whom he knew as “Armando,” by providing police his social media profile, the document said.
A man from the Dominican Republic who was inside the trailer was able to identify both Salinas and Peña in a photo line-up.
Both men are set to appear before Magistrate Judge J. Scott Hacker for their first detention hearing on Wednesday.
