Thread: One of the Deadliest Places on the Southwest Border

One of the Deadliest Places on the Southwest Border

One day last week, the first call came in to the sheriff’s office shortly before 10 a.m. Border Patrol agents had called it in — the body of a woman, near a barbed wire fence in the back corner of a ranch.CreditBrooks County Sheriff’s Office




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One day last week, the first call came in to the sheriff’s office shortly before 10 a.m. Border Patrol agents had called it in — the body of a woman, near a barbed wire fence in the back corner of a ranch.CreditCreditBrooks County Sheriff’s Office

By The New York Times

• April 18, 2019

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The bodies in the brush

By Manny Fernandez in Falfurrias, Tex.
Last week, President Trump told reporters during his visit to San Antonio that he was shocked to learn that migrants were dying in the South Texas brush after crossing the border illegally.


“I had no idea,” Mr. Trump said. “Nobody has any idea how bad this is.” He added, “Many, many are dying. That was what surprised me.”


The president spoke at a private club last Wednesday at 12:56 p.m. At that very moment, 186 miles to the south, Deputy Bianca Mora with the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office was driving a patrol truck on a caliche road. She was responding to a report of a migrant body on a ranch. It was her second body of the day.




“I don’t know how to explain it but you get used to it,” said Deputy Mora, 25. “I went to one last year and I didn’t have enough body bags. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of bodies that we found. I went initially for one. We picked up three.”


Brooks County is deep in South Texas brush country: an immense swath of ranchlands thick with thorny shrubs, cactus and mesquite and oak trees. The county seat, Falfurrias, has a population of 4,981. One ranch alone is 8,600 acres — more than 10 times the size of Central Park. Brooks County is far north of the border — about an hour’s drive — but it is home to a busy Border Patrol traffic checkpoint.


[Read more about those checkpoints here.]
Migrants, led by smugglers known as coyotes, try to hike around the checkpoint. Ill-prepared for the days-long journey in the harsh brush, sometimes without adequate water or food, hundreds of migrants have died on the private ranches in Brooks County in recent years, making it one of the deadliest places on America’s southwest border.


Since January 2009, the bodies or skeletal remains of 642 migrants have been discovered in Brooks County. They die from the cold in the winter and die from the heat in the summer. They die of dehydration, heat stroke, hypothermia. They die alone. Sometimes they die together, like the five migrants whose bodies were found under a tree during a freeze one winter. Eight bodies have been found so far this year. Fifty were recovered in 2018 by the sheriff’s office, down from 52 in 2017 and 61 in 2016.


Those 642 bodies are but a fraction of the border-wide total. From October 1997 to September 2018, the Border Patrol recorded 7,505 migrant deaths in its nine sectors along the entire southwestern border. The actual number of border deaths is likely higher, because the Border Patrol figure includes only cases reported to the authorities— no one knows how many were never found.




The sheriff of Brooks County, Urbino “Benny” Martinez, said he was not all that surprised that some people were unaware of what has been happening in his county, including the president of the United States.
“It’s kind of that old thing — out of sight, out of mind, and if it’s not happening in your backyard, you’re not going to pay attention to it,” Sheriff Martinez said.


On the day the president spoke, the first call came in to the sheriff’s office shortly before 10 a.m., a few hours into Deputy Mora’s 12-hour shift. Border Patrol agents had called it in — the body of a woman, near a barbed wire fence in the back corner of a ranch. Her skeleton was face down. She was carrying cash from Honduras, Mexico and the United States. Prayer cards were found in the dirt around her, and in the pockets of her jeans.


“The Border Patrol agents were following a group of illegals northbound, towards the highway, and the group crossed over the body and just kept going,” Deputy Mora said. “The agents came across it and called it out.”


Deputy Mora was back in the office, writing up her report, when the second call came in shortly before noon. A worker had found the body of a man at another ranch. The man was lying face up, his arms extended out, on a sandy road known as a drag. A Honduran ID card was in his black wallet.


Dr. Corinne E. Stern, who is the chief medical examiner of Laredo’s Webb County and who conducts autopsies for Brooks County, said both bodies had not yet been positively identified. The woman was possibly a Honduran missing person. The man was likely the Honduran on the ID, Dr. Stern said.



The U.S.-Mexico border is a daily headline. A political football. And also home to millions of people. Every week for the next few months, we'll bring you their stories, far from the tug-of-war of Washington politics.






“The most likely cause of death is dehydration,” Dr. Stern said of both bodies.


Relatives in Honduras said they believed the man who was found last week was indeed the person on the ID card: Rudy Donaldo Martinez Arias, 21, a husband and father who lived in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. Relatives said they were told Mr. Martinez had died of thirst in South Texas after the coyote abandoned him and other migrants.


Rudy Donaldo Martinez Arias and his daughter in a photo he posted on Facebook in January.



“He left our country, Honduras, because the salaries are not enough here,” Maricela Amador, 24, Mr. Martinez’s cousin, said in an interview using Facebook messages. “It is pure poverty. That’s why people migrate to the United States without knowing what awaits them. He wanted to leave to find a good job where he could provide for his family.”
Mr. Martinez’s daughter is 3 years old. In January, he posted a selfie of the two of them on his Facebook page. A relative posted a comment, remarking how beautiful the girl looked.


“Yes, that’s right,” Mr. Martinez wrote in Spanish. “She’s the most beautiful, my princess.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/u...er-deaths.html

Originally Posted by stoptheinvaders

One of the Deadliest Places on the Southwest Border



Rudy Donaldo Martinez Arias and his daughter in a photo he posted on Facebook in January.



“He left our country, Honduras, because the salaries are not enough here,” Maricela Amador, 24, Mr. Martinez’s cousin, said in an interview using Facebook messages. “It is pure poverty. That’s why people migrate to the United States without knowing what awaits them. He wanted to leave to find a good job where he could provide for his family.”
Mr. Martinez’s daughter is 3 years old. In January, he posted a selfie of the two of them on his Facebook page. A relative posted a comment, remarking how beautiful the girl looked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/u...er-deaths.html

Listen up lame brains!

You have Facebook in your poverty.

My first 5 years at school were in a school with "outdoor toilets" water from a well, and a coal burning stove for heat. That wasn't in some 3rd world hell hole, that was right here in the good ole United States of America. I am NOT complaining, far from it, it was wonderful, much better than today in many ways.

Rant over! these people and their sob stories make my blood pressure rise.

Do not come here, they are not wanted.

They are their Presidents responsibility and we have our own living in poverty we are forced to pay for! We are sick of it.

They live in "pure poverty" but continue to breed more mouths they cannot feed and it is disgusting! Get on birth control, it is cheap in their country.

They need to put these photos on fliers and drop them in Central America. We have had it with this invasion and this mess WE are forced to pay for to clean up.

That does not include the hundreds of thousands of miles of garbage they trash our border and our whole country with!

They are economic migrants and should be turned away. Stop this human trafficking and this invasion.

We give their countries billions of dollars with ZERO results. That is their damn problem to solve. Go home and fight for your "better life" on your soil because you are destroying ours and our country with your lawlessness and poverty!

Originally Posted by stoptheinvaders

By Manny Fernandez in Falfurrias, Tex.
Last week, President Trump told reporters during his visit to San Antonio that he was shocked to learn that migrants were dying in the South Texas brush after crossing the border illegally.


“I had no idea,” Mr. Trump said. “Nobody has any idea how bad this is.” He added, “Many, many are dying. That was what surprised me.”

The lying con artist tells another one.

I put lies into 2 piles----there is a lie and there is a lie+insult.

Someone could raise the hood on my car and tell me the carburetor is the alternator and I wouldn't know the difference (mechanically illiterate) yes, I am and admit it. That is a lie.

Another flower lover can stand in my garden and tell me a daisy is a violet. That is a lie + insult.
I know it is a lie.
They know it is a lie.
They know that I know it is a lie.

I don't like being lied to but, a lie+insult----let's just say I have a long memory.