Three people were detained in what appeared to be one of the worst episodes of migrant death in recent years on the southern border.

SAN ANTONIO — The bodies of at least 46 people believed to be migrants who crossed into the United States from Mexico were found dead on Monday in and around a tractor-trailer that had been abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio, state and city officials said.

“The plight of migrants seeking refuge is always a humanitarian crisis,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio told reporters late Monday.

The chief of the San Antonio Police Department, William McManus, said three people had been taken into custody.

The truck was discovered by a worker from a nearby business who “heard a cry for help and came out to investigate,” said Chief McManus, adding that the worker had found the doors of the trailer partially open and found a number of bodies inside.

State officials in Texas, already managing record levels of migrant crossings from Mexico, have been bracing for a new surge this spring and summer.

San Antonio and other cities across Texas have been experiencing heat in June that is at or near record levels.

“Imagine being abandoned inside an 18-wheeler left to die,” Representative Tony Gonzales, whose congressional district stretches from the outskirts of San Antonio to the border, wrote on Twitter.

A spokesman for the Texas state police referred questions to the San Antonio Police Department, which did not respond to requests for comment.

San Antonio is a major transit point for migrants making their way from Texas to places across the United States.

Abbott has poured billions of dollars in state funding into increasing the presence of the Texas State Police and National Guard soldiers at the border.

Abbott has sought to blame for the large number of arriving migrants.

In recent days, law enforcement officials along the border and in nearby counties have expressed concern at the number of arriving migrants in Texas, which has long been one of the most heavily trafficked borders for migrants.

Federal officials have recorded a record number of illegal crossings across the southern border for this point in the year, with more than 44,000 recorded last month just in the area around Del Rio and Eagle Pass, the border city closest to San Antonio.

One of the deadliest smuggling cases occurred in 2003, when sheriff’s deputies discovered the bodies of 17 migrants, including a 7-year-old boy, inside an overheated trailer in Victoria, a city in southern Texas.

When officials located the trailer at a truck stop, they found that the migrants trapped inside had attempted to punch air holes out so they could breathe.

In 2017, 10 men died in San Antonio after riding in a tractor-trailer packed with as many as 200 migrants who did not have food, water or fresh air for hours.

In 2012, a Ford pickup crammed with more than 20 undocumented migrants struck two trees in South Texas, killing 15 people.

And last August, at least 10 people died and 20 others were injured after a van crashed in South Texas.

In May, agents apprehended more than 239,000 migrants along the border, an all-time high, including people who had already attempted to enter before.

“This horrible tragedy is a reminder that we need a safe, orderly way for people to claim asylum,” said Representative Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, a Democrat.

The policy has also given migrants an incentive to make repeated attempts to cross the border if they do not succeed on their first try, immigration analysts say, one factor in the escalating number of crossings over the past year.

On Monday, authorities found the bodies of 46 migrants in a tractor-trailer in Texas, one of the worst episodes of migrant deaths on the southwestern U.S.

That number spiked in 2021 to 5,914, the highest since 2017, when 6,284 migrants died or went missing.

In February, 12 migrants died in freezing temperatures in Turkey, near the country’s border with Greece.

Responding to news of the migrant deaths near the southern Texas border, Gov.

Greg Abbott pointed the blame at what he said were President Biden’s “open border policies.”.

Homeland Security officials said that they had been bracing for as many as 18,000 migrants arriving daily should the policy end.

Biden has also sought to end a policy commonly known as “Remain in Mexico,” which requires migrants from a third country arriving through the southern border to await the outcome of their asylum application in Mexico.

Abbott has poured billions into sending state police and the National Guard to the border, repurposed state prisons to hold migrants charged with trespassing and set up check points for trucks from Mexico, disrupting international trade.

Hours before the discovery of the migrant deaths, he boasted on Twitter of the number of migrants apprehended and criminally charged under what he has dubbed “Operation Lone Star.”.

Despite the arrests, more migrants have been arriving at the border and managing to evade detection and enter the country illegally.

Federal officials were expecting that the lifting of a pandemic-related emergency public health order, under which many migrants have been swiftly expelled, could bring thousands of migrants daily to the southern border, which has already been seeing a surge of illegal crossings.

The number of migrants apprehended while entering the United States through the southern border has risen to the highest level in decades.

In May, encounters between Customs and Border Protection officials and unauthorized migrants near the southern border rose more than 30 percent from a year earlier, according to the agency’s data.

Across the border, which stretches from Texas to California, there have been as many as 18,000 encounters a day between officials and migrants.

A public health measure that empowers border officials to summarily expel migrants, known as Title 42, was introduced during the Trump administration and gives the Biden administration a tool to try to control the current levels of migration, while also generating criticism from public health experts and advocates for migrants.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio said on Monday evening that his office had been working to assist the increasing number of migrants seeking asylum in the city.

“This horrible tragedy is a reminder that we need a safe, orderly way for people to claim asylum,” said Representative Joaquin Castro of San Antonio.

The bodies of more than 40 people who appeared to have crossed into the United States illegally were found on Monday in one of the worst episodes of migrant deaths on the southern border in recent years.

In 2003, sheriff’s deputies discovered the bodies of 17 migrants, including a 7-year-old boy, inside an overheated trailer truck in Victoria, a city in southern Texas.

Ten men died in San Antonio in 2017 after riding in a tractor-trailer packed with as many as 200 migrants.

Last August, at least 10 people died and 20 others were injured after a van crashed in South Texas.

Ron Nirenberg, the mayor of San Antonio, said that his office was working to provide medical care to the 16 people who were still in the hospital!

Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, said on Twitter that the deaths of the people believed to be migrants was devastating.

At Least 42 People Found Dead Inside Truck Carrying Migrants In Texas.

Gustavo García-Siller, the archbishop of San Antonio, said on Twitter that about 46 migrants were found dead

Police Chief William McManus of San Antonio said three people are in custody

More than 40 people believed to be migrants were found dead inside and around an abandoned tractor-trailer in San Antonio, where temperatures reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday and a heat wave recently broke records