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Hatchets and radios: Smugglers prepare migrants for the dangers of border journey

Call them smugglers with a heart.

When agents stopped a truck going through a Border Patrol highway checkpoint in Texas earlier this month they found 70 illegal immigrants in the semi-trailer — and walkie-talkie and two hatchets.

The smugglers had placed the radio and hatchets there to help the migrants call for help and break out of the trailer should they run into trouble.

It’s one response to the shocking story of migrants who became trapped in another trailer on a hot Texas day on June 27. Fifty-three of them would end up dead in what has become the worst border tragedy in recent memory.