It’s the stuff of nightmares. Last night, 46 people were found dead in the back of a truck in San Antonio, Texas. Although the cause of death is not yet confirmed, the 16 people who survived were reported to be “hot to the touch” – so hyperthermia is suspected. They likely cooked to death. These deaths are a tragedy for the victims, their families, and the traumatised emergency responders who opened the truck doors to find “stacks of bodies”. But they are only part of an ongoing and horrific tragedy of far larger proportions.
From the vantage point of the UK, this incident is all too familiar. In October 2019, we had our own tragedy: the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people in the back of a truck in Essex, south east England. They, too, died of hyperthermia in their attempt to reach a better life. The similarities don’t stop there. Speaking last night, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told the BBC, "Human smugglers are callous individuals who have no regard for the vulnerable people they exploit and endanger in order to make a profit." His implication is clear: the blame for this nightmare should land on the smugglers, the people who facilitated the victims’ clandestine movement across borders.
We heard similar rhetoric back in 2019. Just hours after the truck was discovered, the member of parliament for that part of Essex tweeted: “People trafficking is a vile and dangerous business”. Priti Patel, the UK home secretary, also directed the public’s focus towards traffickers, reassuring us that the government would “work tirelessly to secure our borders against a wide range of threats, including people trafficking”. On both sides of the Atlantic, we are being sold the same story: when tragedy occurs, blame the smugglers or the traffickers. Whatever you do, don’t ask questions about borders.
