Thread: Summer a deadly time along U.S.-Mexico border

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5859345.html

June 27, 2008, 12:24AM
Summer a deadly time along U.S.-Mexico border

By DANE SCHILLER and DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Comments (32)

A woman who sneaked into Houston this week after hiking miles through one of the most brutally hot and deadly stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border is frantic for help, but scared to ask for it.

While evading U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints in South Texas, she left behind the body of another woman who collapsed and died, perhaps from a scorpion sting or snake bite.

The woman, who gave her name as Karina and insisted on anonymity, said she tried to help her friend walk when they fell far behind a larger group led by a smuggler.

Now she is carefully trying to find a way to get authorities to go back and find the body — and see that it is sent home to Honduras — without herself risking being arrested and deported.

"I want to get word to her family," Karina said of the woman she met on the trail. "They should know what happened to her so they can retrieve the body."

With temperatures along the Texas-Mexico border climbing into the 100s, the dying season is getting under way for illegal immigrants braving dehydration and other enemies.

The Border Patrol's McAllen Sector — which starts in the Rio Grande Valley and includes a huge swath of territory that hugs the Gulf Coast — reports already finding 67 bodies in the first nine months of this fiscal year.

That compares to 61 for all of 2007.

Even more horrific than the figure itself is that the deadliest months of the year — July and August — are still to come. Other Border Patrol sectors didn't yet have June death totals compiled.

Among the dead in the past six weeks are four unidentified women, although none seems to fit the description of Karina's friend.

The latest body was found Tuesday night about six miles south of the town of Falfurrias. The man's wallet was empty other than a few religious cards.

His black T-shirt, adorned with images of skulls, had been pulled over his face, almost as if a passer-by had wanted him to rest in peace.

Immigrants say they accept the risk that comes with sneaking into the United States because they can earn more here in a day than they do in a week back home.

Also, the odds of survival are clearly in their favor.

Although 43 illegal immigrants died in the McAllen Sector last year, 73,439 were arrested, and many more likely evaded capture.

Although law enforcement officials, such as the sheriff's departments or Border Patrol, get calls from worried families, it is often difficult to identify remains because illegal immigrants travel with very little.

Abandoned bodies are often ravaged by wild hogs and other animals that roam the brushlands.

"Sometimes (officers) find bones scattered; last month they found three skulls," said Brooks County Sheriff Baldi Lozano, whose county is smack in the middle of immigrant routes and recovers many of the bodies.

It is also unclear exactly why deaths are increasing in the McAllen Sector. Overall along the entire 2,000-mile border, deaths are on par with previous years.

Among the possibilities is that, due to increased Border Patrol pressure in Arizona and other parts of the border, smugglers are looking to the Rio Grande Valley just as it gets hot.

"It has already hit 104 (degrees)," said Daniel Doty, a spokesman for the patrol's McAllen Sector.

"It is generally a three-day walk around the checkpoint, and they are told it is just a few hours," he said of immigrants trying to get past stationary inspection points on roadways leading north. "We've got these smugglers saying it is a short walk, here is a gallon of water."

Walkers can end up in areas where there is plenty of heat and sand, but not much shade or wind. With time, they can become disoriented and not sure if they are walking north or south.

"Inside the brush there is no water, no wind blowing," Sheriff Lozano said. "We just started summer, and I think it's going to get pretty hot."

dane.schiller@chron.com

dudley.althaus@chron.com

WHY IS IT THAT ILLEGALS TRY TO CROSS THE BORDER IN SUMMER? IT SEEMS THAT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO WAIT FOR COOLER WEATHER. DO THE COYOTES HAVE A SUMMER SALE OR SOMETHING? I JUST DONT GET IT. AND IT SEEMS LIKE IT WOULD BE BETTER TO CROSS AT NIGHT ALSO. BUT AT LEAST NOT DURING THE HOTTEST TIME OF THE SUMMER.

story is up to almost 500 posts now. WOW