The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

They find the body of a migrant child in the Rio Grande and his brother is still missing

2022-05-09T10:47:34.493Z


Border Patrol finds the body of a drowned migrant child after being swept away by river currents and the brother is still missing.


Criticism of Border Patrol for the death of immigrants 3:29

(CNN) --

The body of a young boy was recovered from the Rio Grande River by Border Patrol agents Thursday, while his brother, who was also swept away by river currents, remains missing, authorities said.

The incident began on May 2 when agents encountered a married couple from Angola who had illegally crossed the Rio Grande River a mile west of the Del Rio International Bridge on the US-Mexico border, according to the report. United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The couple told agents that their two sons, ages 7 and 9, were swept away by the strong currents of the river while trying to cross into the US, according to CBP.

A Del Rio Station boat patrol unit was deployed to the area to find the children, and the Del Rio Sector Foreign Operations Branch contacted their law enforcement counterparts in Mexico for coordinated assistance, CBP added.

The parents were detained by Border Patrol agents and processed, CBP said.

advertising

Three days later, Mexican authorities found the body of a child matching the family's description near the riverbank on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, CBP said.

The body of an adult male was also found in the area.

The other son of the family has not yet been located.

The fatal discovery underscores the growing danger of water crossings along the Rio Grande, which forms a natural border between the United States and Mexico.

Just two weeks ago, a member of the Texas National Guard went missing after trying to rescue two migrants who appeared to be drowning as they crossed the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, about 60 miles south of the Del Rio International Bridge.

The body of the guard, 22-year-old Bishop Evans, was found several days later.

He was not authorized to enter the water, but he "acted selflessly" to rescue the migrants, authorities said.

The migrants, who survived, are suspected of being "involved in transnational illicit narcotics trafficking" and were taken into CBP custody.

Although the majority of migrant deaths at the border are related to heat exposure, water-related deaths and rescues have risen sharply in recent years in the Del Rio sector.

Water-related deaths tripled there from fiscal year 2018 to 2019, and water rescues increased more than 1,000%, according to CBP data.

In 2019, the image of a Salvadoran father and his two-year-old daughter lying face down in the waters of the Rio Grande sparked international outcry.

The shocking image that illustrates the crisis at the border 1:31

Migrants from around the world at the US-Mexico border

On the other hand, the origin of the migrant family in Angola is part of a significant increase in migrants arriving at the southern border from outside North and Central America.

On its website, CBP broadly separates the demographic origins of migrants into five categories: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and "Other."

From this point in fiscal year 2021 to 2022, CBP encounters with citizens of "Other" countries at the Southwest land border soared from about 64,000 to 377,000, an increase of nearly 500%, the data shows.

Encounters with citizens of Mexico, by comparison, increased by just 43%, the data shows.

The "Others" group includes large numbers of migrants from Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti, as well as smaller groups of migrants from Ukraine and Russia.

In September, tens of thousands of migrants, most of them Haitians, gathered at a makeshift camp in Del Rio.

And in December, CNN reported on a migratory surge made up mostly of middle-class families from South America, underscoring the economic and political instability in much of Latin America.

Since March 2020, CBP has been enforcing a public health order known as Title 42, which allows US authorities to quickly remove migrants at US land borders.

Under Title 42, authorities expelled migrants at the US-Mexico border more than 1.8 million times in just over two years, according to CBP data.

US Customs and Border Protection said arrests along the border increased in March, when there were more than 220,000 encounters with migrants.

To some extent, migration is seasonal and the number of people trying to cross the border tends to increase in the spring.

CNN's Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.

Rio Grande

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-05-09

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.