the development was first reported by nbc more than 3500 arrests have been made in recent months according to dhs the stash houses as they are known to investigators were found in the largely affluent area of northwest washington the official confirmed the health and condition of the migrants was unclear on thursday these sort of illegal operations have received intense scrutiny from immigration authorities in recent months as homeland security officials move to crack down on transnational criminal smuggling organizations the number of people crossing the border into the us seeking asylum we expect to only go up ive asked for the deployment of the guard as long as we need the guard to deal with the humanitarian crisis that we expect to escalate bowser said last month the largest masscasualty incident in the us believed to be smuggling related left more than 50 people dead after they were discovered inside an overheated tractortrailer in san antonio texas more 2 men indicted for 53 migrants found dead in tractortrailer since april the department of homeland security has directed more than 50 million and 1300 personnel with a renewed focus on human smuggling more 4 charged after 53 found dead in texas tractortrailer hsi homeland security investigations has dedicated groups assigned to combat human smuggling an ice spokesperson said in a statement separate from the case of the 73 people bowser said on wednesday she had requested assistance from the dc national guard to aid in managing migrants who have been bussed north by authorities at the direction of texas gov greg abbott local nonprofits have reportedly strained to accommodate the busses with migrants as they have arrived our goal is to identify disrupt and dismantle significant transnational criminal organizations tco involved in human smuggling through the aggressive and smart application of the full range of our authorities an ice spokesperson declined to comment on specifics citing the ongoing nature of the investigation in this june 27 2022 file photo police and other first responders work the scene where officials say dozens of people have been found dead and multiple others were show more eric gayap file abbott has said his bussing policy is in response to president joe biden and congress border policies and the chaos they have caused they refuse to come down and see firsthand the discovery comes amid what washington mayor muriel bowser called a broader humanitarian crisis immigration and customs enforcement on wednesday found 73 migrants including 13 children in multiple washington dc homes believed to be operated by human smugglers according to an ice official abc news beatrice peterson contributed to this report authorities are investigating how they arrived in the district and the full extent of the potential smuggling ring one official said human smuggling networks are typically found much closer to the southwest border