On the night of June 5, 39 people were locked inside a trailer hauling northbound through South Texas. The driver, fleeing a Border Patrol checkpoint, kept driving after agents deflated his tires. He kept driving until the trailer caught fire. Border patrol agents and state troopers heard screaming from inside. They could not break the lock. They had to ask the two suspects where the keys were before they could get the door open.

The 39 people who stumbled out of that burning trailer were from Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. They had been loaded at stash houses in Roma and Edinburg, Texas, by the same two men now facing federal charges.

Jairo Juli Holguin-Florentino and Cristian Johansel Mirambeaux-Martinez are charged with conspiracy to transport migrants in a manner that places lives in jeopardy. That charge is a starting point, not a finish line. These men locked human beings inside a trailer, fled law enforcement, continued driving on deflated tires while people screamed, and only surrendered the keys when asked directly. Federal prosecutors must pursue the most serious charges the law allows.

But one prosecution is not enough. The stash houses in Roma and Edinburg did not appear overnight. The network that loaded 39 people into that trailer, charged them for the privilege, and locked them in has been operating long enough to have safe houses in multiple cities. We are calling on Congress to direct federal resources toward dismantling the smuggling infrastructure that makes incidents like this possible, and on the Department of Justice to treat this case as a window into a broader criminal network, not a closed file.

The 39 people who survived deserve justice. So does every person still moving through these networks tonight.

Sign this petition to demand full prosecution and real action against the smuggling operations that put lives at risk.