Guardsman who died saving migrants a hero
He and other troops on the border deserve so much more than to be treated as political pawns.
The languid meanders of the Rio Grande are deceiving.
Sections where migrants usually cross from Mexico into the U.S. are mostly shallow and no wider than the length of about four cars. But in places, deeper currents can rip fast and cruel.
On Monday, Spc. Bishop Evans of the Texas Army National Guard, 22, deployed to the border for Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative, was pronounced the latest victim of the river after a four-day search turned up his body. His name joins a list of at least 23 people who have drowned just this past month. The others were migrants just like the two people Evans gave his life to save.
“That river looks like it’s not dangerous but it’s very dangerous,” Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber, a former U.S. Border Patrol officer, said when Evans was reported missing. “That’s why they call it the Rio Bravo in Spanish. Bravo means like a bull, like an angry bull.”
You’d think, knowing how treacherous those waters can be, particularly in the area near Eagle Pass where Evans was stationed, the Texas Military Department would have outfitted the guardsman with a flotation device. A rope. Anything.
Instead, seeing a woman struggling in the water, the young soldier threw off his jacket and armor, dropped his radio and jumped in without a second thought.
“He wouldn’t ask you who you were before he tried to help you. He just wouldn’t,” Evans’ grandmother Jo Ann Johnson, who raised him, told the press on Monday. “It doesn’t matter your nationality, how you look, your color hair. That’s who my baby was.”
What Evans did was heroic. It also shouldn’t have been necessary.
Abbott and his Republican supporters would likely agree. They argue that President Joe Biden’s “open border” is to blame. While the border isn't “open” — if it were, migrants wouldn’t put their lives on the line by crossing the river — the responsibility for managing it lies with the federal government, as we have noted time and again. Congress and the president must do more to address the root of unauthorized migration. A good start would be improving processing at ports of entry so that migrants can be efficiently assessed to determine whether or not they are admissible to the United States or whether there’s evidence for removal proceedings.
Yet, Biden isn’t the one in charge of Operation Lone Star, which has mandated the deployment of 10,000 troops with little training or support and is costing Texas taxpayers more than $2.5 million a week. And Abbott has nothing to show for it. Though he touts fentanyl seizures as the goal of targeting migrants on state trespassing charges, Abbott has been unable to point to clear data attributing any seizures to his operation; instead he’s filled local jails with migrants who are there on questionable legal grounds and shifted resources away from the counties experiencing the greatest influx of immigrants and drugs.
Command Sgt. Maj. Jason Featherston, a Texas Army National Guard veteran who helped oversee the soldiers’ deployment, said he recalls commanders saying things such as, “We’re going back to the border, the governor is trying to get reelected.”
Evans, a native of Arlington, joined the Texas Army National Guard in 2019 and served as a field artilleryman in Kuwait and Iraq. He is at least the fifth guard member who has died since Operation Lone Star began in March 2021; four were reported incidents of suicide. Poor working and living conditions for troops as well as ongoing pay problems only further illustrate the priorities of an operation more focused on politicking than meaningfully working to find solutions to the crisis at the border.
Investing in some measly life jackets might not facilitate the dramatic photo ops that patrol boats and surveillance aircraft do, but one life jacket could have saved Evans’ life. The Texas Military Department only ordered water rescue equipment 11 months after the start of Operation Lone Star, and it didn’t reach Evans in time.
This latest loss should be a bipartisan wake-up call. It is a reminder that the liquid delineation between Mexico and the U.S. does not discriminate. Within the roiling waters of the Rio Grande two tragedies converged: desperate migrants willing to risk their lives for a slippery dream of better conditions and a young man willing to risk his own life for that of a stranger in need.
As U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, put it in a tweet on Wednesday: “Republicans and Democrats should be talking about one thing today — Specialist Bishop Evans. And how we can prevent the next death along our Southern Border.”
We agree.
Evans was just a kid, a year above the legal drinking age, who loved to dance. He was a fan of anime and family game nights.
“(He) was a human being,” Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, adjutant general for Texas, said. “He saw a human being drowning and he jumped in the water to save them.”
Evans isn’t the only one who would put his life on the line for anyone regardless of creed, race or nationality. A great majority of the troops would. They all deserve so much more than to be treated as political pawns.