As flow of migrants continues, deaths from exposure mount
Brooks County on pace to exceed 2017’s toll of 52 with 33 bodies found dead since January
BROOKS COUNTY — A blue bin filled with jugs of water on the side of a back road here had two messages written on it.
One said “AGUA” in capital letters. The other: “Build the wall.”
A persistent stream of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally flows through this county some 70 miles north of the Rio Grande, which is ground zero for migrant deaths from exposure. The Brooks County Sheriff’s Office has recovered 33 bodies since January, putting the county on pace to exceed last year’s death toll of 52. More than 600 bodies have been recovered there since 2009.
Despite the danger and grim statistics, people keep crossing. And immigrant activists say the Trump administration’s zerotolerance policy that separated immigrant families and expanded Border Patrol checkpoints leads immigrants to take more
drastic, dangerous measures to avoid law enforcement.
“It’s like water,” Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez said. “Water is going to find its way through.”
Every year, nearly 50,000 undocumented immigrants are apprehended after crossing into the U.S. in the Rio Grande sector.
An untold number make it past law enforcement, and, in pursuit of family members scattered throughout the U.S., head north along U.S. 281 through Hidalgo County until they reach a Border Patrol checkpoint a few miles from Falfurrias, the Brooks County seat. That checkpoint is expanding to eight lanes from three to accommodate increased traffic.
Just before the station, many immigrants strike out on foot, taking circuitous routes through brushland to evade the Border Patrol. As the security crackdown on the U.S. 281 corridor continues, immigrants are being pushed farther west.
“The traffic hasn’t diminished at all; it’s just deviated,” said Rafael Larraenza Hernandez, director of Los Angeles del Desierto, a volunteer search and rescue group.
Brooks is thick with rich soil that turns to red muck when it rains, sticking to shoes like glue. During episodes of fierce wind, sand whips dizzyingly around roots and shrubbery. Private ranches sprawl across thousands of acres bordering U.S. 281.
“If you run into the brush and you don’t know where you’re going to, you’re going to die. It’s a guarantee,” Deputy Sheriff Elias Pompa said. “Once you’re in the brush, there’s no sense of direction, no anything. I’ve been in there. It’s a little weird.”
The Sheriff ’s Office has five deputies trained in rescue and recovery of undocumented immigrants — five deputies to scout 944 square miles.
About 60 to 70 undocumented immigrants are apprehended along highways or in the brushland in the county every day. For every person they find, five go undiscovered, Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez estimated.
Sheriff’s deputies and Border Patrol agents find bodies hours, days, months and — in one recent case — almost a year after the migrants’ deaths. They’re found in various states of decay — from still warm, to partially decayed, to sun-bleached bone.
“You get to a point like, when does it end? Why are they dying?” Martinez said. “And are you doing enough?”
‘Thousands of bodies’
While nonprofits assert the Trump administration’s strengthening of the border is leading immigrants down more dangerous paths, Martinez said this year’s body count could reflect a high volume of immigrants passing through his county, as well as his office’s expanded efforts to retrieve remains.
“It’s going to be a while before we really feel how it’s going to be impacted at the end of the day (by Trump’s policies), how it’s going to come to rest,” the sheriff said.
Jason de Leon, a University of Michigan anthropologist who has studied migrant deaths along the border, said there’s no comprehensive count of migrant deaths in the U.S.
“We’ve recorded thousands of bodies in Arizona and Texas, but we know there’s probably a lot more we have not uncovered because natural conditions destroy corpses, sometimes within a matter of weeks or so,” he said. “You’ve got a hell of a lot more missing person reports than migrant bodies.”
Los Angeles del Desierto, based in San Diego, Calif., searches for missing migrants in a small plane in states along the border and aids in identifying remains. A few years ago, the nonprofit used to receive one call per week from people inquiring about missing family members who had crossed the border, said Hernandez, the director. Now, calls come in a rate of one per day, he said.
“After this new government, calls have increased drastically, especially in the bad areas of Texas and Arizona,” he said.
Eddie Canales, director of the South Texas Human Rights, said he’s also noticed an uptick in missingperson calls. The nonprofit, based in Brooks County, operates a hotline for people trying to track down missing family members.
“No matter how much enforcement you do, people are going to continue to come and continue to die,” he said.
Humanitarian groups have set up water stations and emergency beacons on some Brooks County ranches, and the Border Patrol has installed cameras and other sensors to detect immigrants across the county. Rescuers use sandy paths in the brush to track footprints of immigrants.
The Border Patrol’s Missing Migrants program, which began as a pilot in the Rio Grande Valley in July 2016, serves as a liaison between the federal agency, Central American consulates and humanitarian groups in seeking to rescue migrants in distress. Some call the Border Patrol on mobile phones; the agency has answered 722 calls with successful rescues since the pilot began, said Hugo Vega, the program director.
In hopes of saving more lives, the Border Patrol is preparing to install signs in the brush, each bearing a unique numerical code to help locate migrants who call seeking help.
Those rescued are nursed back to health and then given due process, Vega said. Many are deported back.
‘Just give up’
In his patrol car, a cowboy hat placed delicately on the dashboard, Deputy Sheriff Pompa pointed out apprehended smugglers’ cars, packed in a lot next to the Sheriff ’s Office.
“It can be an old car, a new car, a big car, a small car. As long as people fit in there, it doesn’t matter,” said Pompa, who’s apprehended dozens of immigrants and smugglers in his four years here.
Some of the vehicles in the lot lack back seats. Others have rigged flooring so the truck doesn’t sag from the weight of migrants crammed in the back. A handful of others are smashed and broken from a police pursuit that ended in a wreck. “Human smuggling” and “Meth 3.5 KG” are scribbled on two car windows.
Brooks County deputies have busted 80 smuggling operations this year, Martinez said. Smugglers have been arrested along the border on charges of raping and killing undocumented immigrants, holding them for ransom or leaving them behind in the brush.
Pompa recovered six bodies in his first month on the job in 2014, he said. Now, he’s almost immune to the horror.
“People don’t realize when you see a body on the ground, it’s covered with a ring of oil. If you step on it — in the beginning, I messed up a pair of boots,” he said. “I had to throw them away, I couldn’t get the smell off. So now I kind of know.”
Last month, a migrant in her 20s called 911 from the Brooks County scrub. She was seeking help for her father, who’d collapsed. By the time law enforcement arrived, the man had died.
Pompa has photos of the man, crumpled over water jugs in the brush while his daughter embraces him. He said he shows the picture to migrants he apprehends to discourage them from trying again.
“I tell them nicely, ‘Just give up,’” he said.
In addition to the smugglers who bring migrants across the border in vehicles, smugglers based in Falfurrias wait for lost, weak migrants to straggle across the brush alone or in small groups. They often hold these people hostage and demand ransom from their relatives, Martinez said. He called this form of exploitation “secondary smuggling.”
Rancher Michael Vickers and his wife found the body of a dead migrant on their property a few years back, her face decomposed beyond recognition. Her long hair was unsullied, a reddish brown the color of dried blood. It was one several corpses they’ve discovered on their property, he said.
A large green sign 4 miles from their home, close to the Falfurrias checkpoint, warns, “Smuggling illegal aliens is a federal crime.”
Along the highways, ranchers’ fences are sporadically
broken and damaged from immigrants climbing over them.
“See where the fence is mashed down right here?” Vickers pointed out on his ranch. “That’s all traffic coming over that fence. Those fences are very expensive.”
Some ranchers with acreage at “hot spots” have given up on fencing, or placed ladders for immigrants to use to avoid damage.
Vickers attached 220volt electric wiring to his fence.
“It can’t kill anybody, but you’ll get a good jolt,” he said.
As for the ladder option?
“I don’t believe in helping them that much,” Vickers said.
Vickers doesn’t have water stations on his ranch because he said he thinks it’s just a “display” for nonprofits to get donations. He also said it would draw more foot traffic through his ranch.
“They’ve set my ranch on fire numerous times, burned a toolshed down, tried to steal my horses, threatened my employees, threatened my wife,” Vickers said. “There’s no question they came from a bad environment, but we cannot take care of the whole world.”
‘I can’t think’ he’s dead
Jorge de Luna’s family knew he was thinking about leaving. They begged him not to go. But de Luna, an electrician, was looking for a better life.
On March 20, he left. Carrying few personal items, the man from Jalisco, Mexico, trekked toward South Texas, leaving behind his wife and four kids.
His family says he’s now “desaparecido” — disappeared. De Luna, 44, was last thought to be traveling through Brooks County.
South Texas Human Rights searched for him, to no avail. The Border Patrol and the Mexican consulate have no record of him either, his family said.
“I can’t think that he’s dead yet. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it until he appears, in whatever form,” said Samuel Reyes Martinez, De Luna’s brother-in-law, who lives in North Carolina.
“And if he never shows up, I will just keep thinking he’s missing.”