Of all the news we heard over the past few weeks, some good, some bad, and some amazing, there is one absolutely heartbreaking story. The thought of 53 people slowly and excruciatingly suffocating to death in the sweltering Texas heat in a closed semi-trailer truck is horrifying. I truly cannot get it out of my mind or my spirit.
It is hard to imagine the terror those poor souls experienced when they realized they had been abandoned in that locked truck. Reporters on the scene seemed unable to find words to describe the magnitude of suffering seen in that truck.
Even the basic facts alone were hard to report: 67 illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and San Salvador were packed into that truck and then left to die near Interstate 35 close to some railroad tracks southeast of San Antonio, Texas.
Of those 67 individuals, 46 were found dead when the abandoned truck was first discovered on Monday, June 27. Within the next few days, seven more of the passengers died as a result of the trauma. To date, there are only 14 survivors of the human trafficking tragedy.
According to some news sources, the truck had fake, cloned license plates, and registration papers, and it was painted the same color as the legitimate truck owning those papers, a vehicle from a well-respected trucking company. Perhaps that is why the illegal truck passed two United States Border Patrol checkpoints without detection.
It is not known for certain when the 67 passengers boarded the truck. Maybe they boarded near the Mexican-American border, or perhaps the passengers had been smuggled aboard along its documented route from Laredo to San Antonio. Three men have been arrested so far in conjunction with the crime, but the truth of the crime is not known yet.
It is known that human traffickers commonly charge immigrants as much as $1000 per person to catch a ride to various destinations across the United States. Often, the hopeful immigrants make their way across the United States border and then to designated safe spots to rendezvous with the human smugglers for a ride outside of border states.
Whatever the case, the ultimate result is that 53 men and women lost their lives, slowly suffocating to death in unbelievable heat. And some person or persons callously left them there to die. It’s almost impossible to comprehend! And recent footage of the driver shows no hint of what was to come.
Did he leave those 67 people there on purpose? Was another driver supposed to come to take over and finish the route? Was someone else supposed to come to unlock the truck and transfer its very human cargo into other, smaller vehicles?
I have read media reports that the driver was found nearby, under the influence of methamphetamines. If so, did he unintentionally leave those poor people to die?
That thought is disturbing, but at least it might account for how one person recklessly and selfishly left 67 other people to die like that.
Still … it does not explain the greed of one human preying on another human for profit. No, it does not explain the unadulterated evil of human trafficking. The only explanation that gets to the heart of this crime is an absolute disregard for life.
If we are honest with ourselves, our nation as a whole has totally lost a holy regard for life, and that stems from losing a holy regard for God. America has turned away from His laws and precepts, and we have set up ourselves as the arbitrators of what we can or cannot do. In fact, we have chosen to believe willfully and ignorantly there is no right or wrong. We deny Christ and choose self, day after day after day. And whether we admit it or not, without Christ, we are all capable of evil, heinous sin.
Even with Jesus, we are capable of failing and doing things we would not or could not imagine. If we take our eyes off Him, we focus on self, and as people who are living for self rather than Savior, we will do anything to justify our sins.
Americans have accepted and justified a whole lot of things that God deems as sin. We have justified our collective sins for so long that we now have the spiritual audacity to claim them as our rights.
American life is all about worshipping at the altar of self. We must be true to self and do what makes us happy, no matter if it costs us our marriages, our families, our churches, our schools, or even our own babies in the womb.
Self comes first in America. Period.
So, let’s get real. It should be no surprise to us that someone would take people’s money, sell them false hope, then leave them to suffocate and die in the back of a semi-truck, in order to save themselves from the consequences of their own sin.
The surprise is that we are still surprised by this callous disregard for life.