Immigration agents made a gruesome discovery on the border Sunday night.
The bodies of two babies, an infant, and a woman were found on the banks of the Rio Grande River by Border Patrol agents. The Rio Grande is a common and dangerous crossing for migrants seeking illegal entry into the United States.
Immigration authorities have declared the situation at the southern border a full-blown humanitarian crisis, but Democrats have refused to help president Trump secure the border.
Tragic discovery
Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra announced the disturbing discovery on Twitter. Border Patrol agents found the bodies on the southeast side of Anzalduas Park, which is in the Las Paloma Wildlife Management Area. Since the corpses were found on federal land, the FBI was called in to investigate.
“Deputies are on scene by the river SE of the Anzalduas Park in Las Paloma Wildlife Management Area where Border Patrol agents located 4 deceased bodies. Bodies appear to be 2 infants, a toddler and 20yoa female. Deputies are awaiting FBI agents who will be leading,” Guerra tweeted.
The FBI said the victims appeared to be illegal immigrants and that they died from dehydration and heat exhaustion. The area where the victims were found is an illegal border crossing with a grim, but seemingly appropriate, name: El Rincon del Diablo, or the Devil’s Corner.
“It’s an incredibly heartbreaking situation, which seems to happen far too often,” said Special Agent in Charge Michelle Lee of the San Antonio FBI office.
Killer crossing
The Rio Grande is known to be a dangerous crossing for illegal migrants. While immigration agents are decried as immoral by the left, border agents have rescued scores of immigrants from drowning in the river.
The number of drownings and rescues has spiked amid a surge in migration that is overwhelming immigration authorities. Illegal immigration reached a 13-year high in May, as agents apprehended some 133,000 migrants at the border.
Some 96 bodies were found in the Rio Grande valley by border agents in fiscal year 2018. Some 300 dead bodies were discovered across the southern border.
Melting snows from the Rocky Mountains have swollen the Rio Grande in the summer season, making crossings particularly treacherous.
Humanitarian crisis
The grim discovery comes as the humanitarian and security crisis at the border reaches new and unmanageable levels. Immigration authorities are struggling to keep pace with an influx of migrants, many of them family units, as they run out of space to detain them.
Progressives have blamed the Trump administration for the deaths of several toddlers in detention centers, which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recently compared to Nazi concentration camps. In fact, former President Barack Obama built immigrant detention centers and deported migrants at a faster rate than Trump.
The president has warned that America’s porous border has negative effects all around: drugs, crime, and decreased wages for American citizens, as well as danger for illegal immigrants attempting dangerous crossings or who are victims of human trafficking. Trump has said that securing the border would discourage dangerous, illegal crossings, but liberal groups insist that enforcing the law has the opposite effect.
“When the government creates policies that make it harder to cross the border safely, people die,” the Texas Civil Rights Project said in response to the news of the four victims. “Children die. We have to shift our policies in favor of compassion.”
Trump just announced that he will temporarily delay a plan to conduct enforcement sweeps designed to result in the deportation of large numbers of illegal immigrants living in the United States.
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