Two men convicted of federal charges related to the deaths of 53 migrants trapped in the back of an overheated tractor trailer in San Antonio in 2022 will spend the rest of their lives behind bars, a judge ruled on Friday, the Associated Press reports.
U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Felipe Orduna-Torres, 30, to life in prison, according to the AP. His accomplice, 55-year-old Armando Gonzales-Ortega, received a sentence of 83 years.
Both were convicted in March of federal charges for their involvement in a human smuggling conspiracy that resulted in the deadliest such incident in the nation’s history.
“These criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison because of their cruel choice to profit off of human suffering,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Today’s sentences are a powerful message to human smugglers everywhere: we will not rest until you are behind bars.”
The feds maintain that Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega were part of an international smuggling operation that collected more than $13 million in fees between 2021 and 2022 for rustling migrants from Central America across the U.S.-Mexico border, the AP reports.
“Cartels do not care about you. They do not care about your hopes and dreams. They do not care about your desire for a better life,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin Simmons told the AP. “They care about money.”
According to the wire service, five other defendants are scheduled to be sentenced for their alleged role in the tragedy later this year. A sixth man, who was arrested for his purported role in the incident in Guatemala last year, is still awaiting trial.
The incident, which grabbed national headlines and shocked San Antonio, wasn’t the first time migrants have died in the Alamo City or South Texas while being transported by smugglers. In a similar incident, 10 migrants died in the back of a truck in San Antonio in 2017, while 19 migrants died similarly in Victoria in 2003.
Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter| Or sign up for our RSS Feed
Related Stories
San Antonio’s Quintana Road migrant memorial repaired after weekend’s ‘hateful’ vandalism
After teasing border security rollback, Texas plunges in deeper
After El Paso joined Abbott’s border crackdown, the number of dead migrants in the New Mexico desert surged
Man accused of killing founder of San Antonio’s Las Palapas suffering mental health crisis, family says
San Antonio-area man gets 120-year prison sentence for migrant kidnapping conspiracy
Body found in San Antonio River this week identified as 21-year-old scholarship recipient
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 9, 2025.
