Seven people are dead after a car ran into pedestrians waiting at a bus stop outside a shelter for migrants in Brownsville, authorities say.

The crash happened on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. across the street from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, Brownsville Police Department Lt. Martin Sandoval told KRGV.

There were 10 people injured at the scene who were taken to a local hospital to treat minor to serious injuries.

Police have detained the driver, a Brownsville resident, who is facing at least one charge of reckless driving and also is being treated for injuries. It is unclear what led to the crash. Local police are investigating if the crash was intentional or accidental, and are performing tests on the driver to check for drug and alcohol use. Authorities have not identified the driver.

Sandoval explained to KRGV that Brownsville Police have not said the crash was intentional.

“Brownsville Police have never taken the stance that this was an intentional act, but it is a factor we have to look at,” Sandoval said.

Shelter director Victor Maldonado told the Associated Press that the bus stop isn’t marked and doesn’t have a bench, so people were sitting along the curb as they waited. Maldonado said most of the victims were Venezuelan men. He told the AP that he pulled surveillance footage of the incident.

What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about a 100 feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” Maldonado said, according to the AP, adding that the SUV flipped after running up the curb.

The Ozanam Center is a homeless shelter that serves individuals and families in need of emergency housing assistance, as well as serving as a food pantry and providing case management services. The center, which was originally established by the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville to house Central American political refugees, has a maximum capacity of 200 people.

With a public health order that allows the federal government to immediately expel migrants from the country set to expire Sunday, shelters across Texas-Mexico border have been preparing for an expected influx of people. On Thursday, the city of Brownsville extended a local disaster declaration to “proactively address the influx of [border] crossings and to support and alleviate the process and transfer of migrants in a humanitarian way.”

This article was written by SNEHA DEY AND JAYME LOZANO CARVER of The Texas Tribune.  The Texas Tribune— and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.  This article originally appeared at: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/07/brownsville-pedestrian-deaths/