AUSTIN (NewsNation) — Eight people, including Americans and migrants, were killed Wednesday when an alleged human smuggler smashed into an oncoming vehicle on a South Texas highway while trying to escape authorities.

Everyone in both vehicles was killed, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The 17-year-old driver of a Honda Civic tried to outrun deputies from the Zavala County Sheriff’s Office and attempted to pass a semi-truck, DPS said.

The Civic collided with a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox, which caught fire. The couple in the vehicle, Jose and Isabel Lerma, were from Georgia.

CBP officials confirm the 17-year-old driver responsible for the crash is Luiz (Luis) Alfredo Mencias-Escobar from Honduras. A judge ordered Mencias-Escobar removed in November 2019 after he entered the U.S. in April.

Then in April 2023 —Mencias-Escobar was stopped in Zavala County, where he was the passenger in a failed human smuggling attempt. Records show that sheriff’s deputies turned him over to Border Patrol before he was ultimately returned to his mother in Houston.

DPS officials said the driver was attempting to smuggle five undocumented individuals deeper into the country after they crossed into the U.S. illegally. Troopers confirmed several were from Honduras. 

Jairo Lerma, the son of the couple killed, told NewsNation that his parents were on their way to Mexico to visit his brother, who lives there. After more than 1,100 miles on the road, they were less than 600 miles away from Zacatecas, just north of Mexico City.

Authorities on the frontline expressed this incident is an ongoing problem and part of a broader trend.

Earlier this year, a Texas grandmother and her 7-year-old granddaughter were killed in a crash that involved a human smuggler trying to escape arrest.

In another incident, a high-speed chase ended in an airborne crash in Frio County, Texas where the 15-year-old driver from San Antonio was reportedly trying to transport an undocumented individual. 

In September 2022, a migrant was killed in a crash just outside Del Rio following a police chase. The driver was attempting to smuggle six migrants.

“You do have a lot of individuals that say, ‘Hey, if you don’t do this, this wouldn’t happen.’ At the end of the day, these are criminal organizations, they’re causing crime, they’re hurting American lives, and you don’t just do anything, you have to enforce the law, you have to have consequences,” said National Border Patrol Council Vice President Art Del Cueto. ‘This will continue to happen as long as this administration continues to ignore it, to talk about it and say nothing’s going on.”

Lerma said alongside his four other siblings, they’re working to raise funds to transport their parents’ bodies to Mexico, as they wished to be buried there. However it is costly, so the family has set up a GoFundMe account to assist them with funeral services.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas has tallied 106 deaths in Border Patrol vehicle pursuits from January 2010 to June of this year. Deaths averaged 3.5 a year through 2019 but spiked in 2020, leading officials to develop a new policy for vehicle pursuits to increase safety.

The policy announced in January stops short of prohibiting chases but, according to CBP, “provides a clear framework for weighing the risks of conducting pursuits, such as the dangers they present to the public, against the law enforcement benefit or need.”

Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating the deadly crash.