Battle of the Brush Rages in Brooks County: 35 Bodies Found in 2011
kristv.com
Posted: Aug 22, 2011 10:05 PM
by Steven Romo
Updated: Aug 22, 2011 10:48 PM

FALFURRIAS, Texas - Since March, Brooks County Sheriff's deputies have found the bodies of 35 suspected illegal immigrants who died trying to cross through the area. The agency says they're taking up a "Battle of the Brush" to crack down on the trafficking of drugs and people through the area.

"It is what it is," -- that's Investigator Daniel Davila's mantra on the job. His crew of 6 men patrol the nearly 950 miles of Brooks County as they face the "battle of the brush".

Undocumented immigrants travel through the county often being led by guides or 'coyotes' who've been paid to lead them, but the heat and rough terrain is claiming lives.

"2009 was a bad year for us. 73 or 74 bodies. I think it was 74," Davila said.

Davila says he feels for the immigrants trying to come here to work. But sending them back home is much more compassionate than letting them go with the possibility of ending up in the files they keep of all of the dead they come across.

Davila says it seems most of the people they find have been charged a huge fee and asked to carry drugs to be taken to the U.S. Many of them die along the way.

"Those are the people I want," Davila said. "The people who are smuggling these people. The people who have the organizations. And, if our organization can help the federal government prosecute any cases, we're going to help them."

To give me an idea of what they go through on their patrols in the brush, officers took me out in the area. I stopped counting discarded water bottles when I got to 200.

About 12 miles from Falfurrias, we saw a place they call a "lay out point". There were a lot of bottles of water and trash. The officers also found some backpacks they think were full of drugs. It looks like they left the bags here before they went on their way with the drugs.

The sheriff's department says they've established a pretty good relationship with local ranches, gaining access to the properties they need to patrol.

While out on patrol, we spotted buzzards flying overhead. The officers say that's often how they find bodies. Today, it was only a dead animal.

Often, there's only one sheriff at a time patrolling the brush areas in the county, but you can tell by the evidence photos on the walls they are having an impact.

Even if the price is seeing an unfortunate end to the lives of some people trying to make their way quietly through Brooks County.

"The American dream sometimes it doesn't go well for them and they end up dying," Davila said. "They die here in Brooks County, in Falfurrias, Texas and it's sad."

The sheriff's department says it's working to get a federal grant, which could help them get more equipment and personnel as soon as October.

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