FALLS CHURCH, Va. (NBC Washington) – Two years before he suffocated to death in the sweltering cargo area of a tractor trailer, Frank Gonzalez Fuentes graduated from J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia, NBC Washington reports.
Fuentes was one of the dozens of undocumented immigrants found inside a truck on Sunday morning at a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas. Ten of them died. Many more also found inside the tractor-trailer hold were taken to the hospital to be treated for dehydration and heat stroke.
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The driver of the tractor-trailer has been charged with transporting immigrants into the United States illegally. Authorities said the cargo area was so hot and crammed with people that it killed 10.
News about Fuentes’ death spread quickly among his former classmates. First reported by the Washington Post, his fate quickly became the subject of numerous social media postings by friends in Northern Virginia.
One writer referenced an unspecified crime that, according to the Post, resulted in Fuentes's deportation to Guatemala 2 years ago, a place he had last seen as a small child, before his parents traveled, undocumented, to the U.S.
One wrote: "Frank learned from his mistakes, but he was robbed at a shot to fulfill his dreams. A broken immigration system within a broken, less than fortunate community. Frank was on his way to receiving an associate's degree at Nova. Do you know the positive impact that would have had on the Fuentes family?"