In the early morning of March 2, an SUV packed with 25 migrants from Mexico and Guatemala was hit by a semi-truck when the driver of the SUV ran a stop sign. The crash in Imperial Valley is one of the deadliest border-related crashes in recent decades.
Survivors who were riding in the SUV said they paid a smuggler to help them cross into the U.S. The suspected smuggler, José Cruz Noguez a Mexican citizen who was not in the SUV when it crashed, has been charged with organizing a human smuggling attempt that caused serious injury.
The New York Times reporter, Miriam Jordan, who reports on the impact of immigration on the society, culture and economy of the United States and is based in Los Angeles profiled some of the victims and survivors of the collision.
Jordan wrote, those who died in the crash are a "portrait of an explosion in migration that has begun overwhelming the U.S. government."
Much of that migration has been exacerbated by the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on developing countries, she said.
Jordan joined Midday Edition on Tuesday to discuss what she learned about the people who made the dangerous trek on that fateful day last month.
