Dead Dreams in South Texas
By: Grace White
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It's the immigrant death toll on rural ranches that's leaving a small South Texas community crying out for help.

In Brooks County, 2 1/2 hours south of San Antonio, officials say they are running out of room to bury the dead.

They are mothers, fathers, siblings and friends, but their graves have no names.

"These are people we don't know who they are, they are John Does, unknowns," said County Judge Raul Ramirez, Brooks County.

They are immigrants who risked everything for the chance at a better life, but they didn't survive the journey.

Their dreams ended here at the Brooks County cemetery, roughly 80 miles north of the border.

The problem now, the county is running out of room.

"We basically hit a plateau that we've now got to look for more land," said Ramirez.

The immigrant death toll here is rising.

In 2012, the county reported 129 bodies.

That's more than double the year before.

In South Texas, it's the ranchers who find themselves on the front lines.

"This is the body... (of) a 14-year-old girls that we found out here," said Ronnie Osburn, a rancher.

"How long do you think she had been out here?" asked White.

"Really not that long, maybe 7-10 days," said Osburn.

It's the rugged terrain that many can't survive.

"It's very, very sandy here, you walk a mile in this sand. It's like walking 3 miles or more," said Osburn.

We found eight make-shift tents on the ranch Osburn manages.

They're basically shelter for the night.

We found an empty can of corn and even a sock left behind.

"There's groups coming through this ranch probably as we speak," said Osburn.

He says it's a sign the border is far from secure.

"There's so many more illegal aliens coming in through South Texas than they are reporting in Washington DC," said Osburn.

What is reported are the immigrants who get caught.

"Back in the 1990s when we were apprehending about 250,000 people here annually, to where we are total under 100,000 last year," said Enrique Mendiola, Border Patrol Spokesman.

The Border Patrol says that's progress, but what isn't reported are the get-a-ways.

If you ask agents in Falfurrias, "This is the busiest we've seen this checkpoint now," said Mendiola.

Their sign touts more than 11,000 arrests and that's only since the fiscal year began in October.

That breaks down to an average 57 immigrants arrested every day in and around the checkpoint.

Agents say once immigrants cross the border here, they are driven up Highway 281 and told to bail out to avoid the checkpoint.

They hike through ranches and are picked up on the other side by coyotes.

Border Patrol agents say they are doing what they can to make sure people survive.

"This is just one of the 8 rescue beacons we have deployed out on some of these ranches," said Mendiola.

The beacons are mobile and agents move them to the areas where the most recent bodies were found.

There's relief water and a way out if they choose.

"All they have to do is punch this button and it will automatically send a signal off for help," said Mendiola.

Border Patrol agents have also marked more than 900 landmarks with numbers that correspond with a GPS location.

So if someone is in trouble, they can find them faster.

But lately, autorities can't seem to find them fast enough.

"We didn't budget for 129 bodies, but the law says we got to pay for them. We will pay for them," said Ramirez.

"So where do you make up the money?" asked White.

"We rob Peter to pay Paul. We don't give employees raises, we cut their departments, we don't fix county roads," said Ramirez.

Because Brooks County is not technically on the border, it doesn't get the federal funding other counties do.

"I just can't absorb this happening in my county and that this many people have died and perished here. We should only have one grave out here, not these kind of numbers," said Ramirez.

Every number is someone's loved one, loved ones who the county now has to find more room to bury.

Brooks County is now partnering with Baylor University to identify some of the remains.

Coming up Monday on Fox News at Nine, hear from a man who was busted smuggling a group of suspected illegal immigrants.
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