Fewer cross, but many still die
As humanitarian crisis tests agents, advocates criticize immigration policy
FALFURRIAS — The deaths of 10 immigrants trapped inside a tractortrailer in San Antonio have thrown a harsh spotlight on the persistent humanitarian crisis that tests the limits of agents whose mission is to catch immigrants entering the country illegally — and rescue them when they are in danger.
The Department of Homeland Security regularly warns migrants against nefarious smugglers and the perils of the journey, but the message has done little to deter migrants fleeing violence and extreme poverty.
“Bottom line, there is more of an incentive for them to take on those risks,” said Robert C. Gilloon, deputy patrol agent in charge of the Falfurrias station of the U.S. Border Patrol, which has borne the brunt of immigrant deaths and rescues in Texas. “They’ll hide in a tractor-trailer if they think that’s going to increase their chances.”
Far fewer immigrants have been attempting to cross the border illegally in recent years as the border security agency has seen staffing and technology grow dramatically over the past decade, but still hundreds of migrants are dying every year in a desperate bid to reach the U.S.
During the 2016 fiscal year, the Rio Grande Valley registered 130 immigrant deaths, more than any other border sector. Texas accounted for nearly 67 per-
cent of all migrant deaths across the Southwest border last year and 74 percent of deaths since October, the start of the fiscal year. Rescues in the Valley, the busiest stretch of border, are roughly the same as a year ago — around 800 since October.
During one brutal stretch of 100-degree days this summer, Border Patrol agents recovered the bodies of six migrants who died in the South Texas brush.
Last week a body was discovered on a ranch near Falfurrias, and two were pulled from the Rio Grande — one near Brownsville and the other recovered upriver by Mexican authorities.
Deterrence policy
Thomas Homan, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called the deaths a “stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished.”
The driver of the tractortrailer in this weekend’s tragedy, 60-year-old James Matthew Bradley Jr., faces up to life in prison or the death penalty on one count of transporting immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Gov. Greg Abbott said human trafficking is an epidemic that Texas intends to eradicate, touting Senate Bill 128, which he signed into law this year. The new law instructs the trucking industry on how to recognize and report signs of human trafficking.
But immigrant advocates say this hardline rhetoric ignores the cost of ramped-up enforcement and the failure of Congress to enact immigration reform, leaving migrants no alternative but to cast their lot with smuggling operations who exploit them.
Some Central Americans now pay $10,000 or more to reach the U.S. border. They’re kept in crowded stash houses for days, crammed into vehicles and forced to march through desert and sweltering heat. Those who cannot keep up are left behind.
“Border enforcement has been using the same strategy for the past 20 years, that of prevention through deterrence,” said Robin Reineke, of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, based in Arizona. “Those who died in the tractortrailer in San Antonio undoubtedly would have preferred to immigrate safely and legally.”
More than 7,000 immigrants have died across the Southwest border since 1998, even as immigrant apprehensions have declined precipitously.
Responding to the deaths, the Border Patrol launched an initiative to string together the disparate efforts of authorities, forensic scientists and humanitarian organizations to identify the dead and return them to their families. The Missing Migrant Program got its start in Arizona and has since been launched nationwide.
Manny Padilla Jr., the Border Patrol’s sector chief in the Rio Grande Valley, assigned Hugo E. Vega the task of implementing the program’s four objectives: prevent deaths, locate missing people, identify those who perish and return remains to their families.
The program has not been easily replicated in Texas. While Texas law requires all counties send a DNA sample of unidentified human remains to an FBI program known as the Combined DNA Index System, there is no centralized method, as there is in Arizona, for handling remains found along the border. Some counties rely on pathologists; others have medical examiners.
Vega’s program aims to resolve those differences. “We are that link when it comes to forensics,” Vega said. “That’s what we bring to the table.”
Complicating the job of rank and file agents are the ever-changing tactics of smuggling operations. Until recently, smugglers used landmarks to guide immigrants through the South Texas brush. Now they make use of GPS to cut unpredictable and hard-tofind paths through ranches. Even when agents are deployed on a rescue mission, immigrants often run at first sight of them.
Forging a partnership
This month, agents pursued a group of immigrants as they scattered into the brush near Falfurrias. They caught a 17-year-old, but his 13-year-old sister got away. She had no water and nothing to guide her to safety. Over three consecutive shifts agents scoured the area until she was found.
“If they didn’t come up with that 13-year-old, what do you think would have happened?” asked Tomas W. Slowinski, deputy patrol agent in charge of the Falfurrias station. “That’s a certain death.”
Ranchers give border agents access to patrol their sprawling properties, but the agents often don’t know to search for the missing because families avoid contact with immigration officials. The humanitarian groups find out about the missing from families but don’t have access to the property or resources to go searching.
“We realize the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) are key because they are the direct connection with the families,” Vega acknowledged. “Many times, those families don’t want to talk with us. They’re afraid.”
As a result, the two sides have forged a complicated partnership that is essential to saving lives.
“Their effort to mitigate or prevent deaths is welcome, but it’s also a contradiction because their deterrence policy causes deaths,” said Eddie Canales, director of the South Texas Human Rights Center.