According to statements made by administration officials on Friday, eight migrants were unable to make it over the roaring floods of the Rio Grande and 37 others had to be rescued in order for them to make it to the United States.
The migrants were among a large number of individuals that across the river near Eagle Pass, a town in southern Texas that has been a significant entrance site for migrants over the course of the last year.
The Rio Grande is several feet higher than it would normally be as a result of recent rainfall, and law enforcement officials have reported making a number of rescues. Some of these rescues took place over the past weekend, when migrants who were struggling to keep their heads above water were being dragged by turbulent currents.
Rick Pauza, a spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection office in Laredo, Texas, said in a statement that the authorities were continuing their search for possible survivors with the assistance of the local fire department and the sheriff’s office. Pauza said that the search was being conducted with the assistance of the local fire department and the sheriff’s office.
According to the statement, in addition to the eight migrants who lost their lives, 37 other migrants were saved, making the total number of migrants brought into custody by the United States police at the scene 53. A total of 39 other migrants who were a member of the group were detained by the police in Mexico.
Manuel Mello, who is the head of the fire department at Eagle Pass, said that strong currents had carried a number of migrants downstream as they were attempting to cross the river around one mile south of the international bridge.
According to the chief, who is a native of Eagle Pass and is 58 years old, drownings have become a regular occurrence in that region of the border, and there is generally at least one death from drowning each day, and occasionally even more.
After another big group attempted to enter the United States illegally about two months ago, he added, 12 deaths were found on the same day. Six of the remains were collected by the Mexican police, and the other six were found by rescue personnel in the United States.
He claimed that only lately, two little boys, one of whom was three years old and the other of whom was three months old, managed to escape the hands of their uncle when they were trying to cross. The younger youngster survived, but the elder boy passed away while being transported to a hospital in San Antonio in serious condition.
In the tragedy that occurred on Thursday, Chief Mello’s firefighters used a swift-water rescue boat to retrieve the body of a young man in his 20s who was only wearing his underwear. Meanwhile, agents from the Border Patrol recovered the bodies of three other men who were found among cane and brush on the Texas side of the river.
The Del Rio Border Patrol sector, which includes Eagle Pass, has developed into one of the busiest crossing locations into Texas for migrants in recent years. This region of the border was formerly known for its peace and quiet.
Agents have stopped 376,000 migrants at that location since the beginning of the fiscal year 2022, which is twice as many as they did during the same time period the previous year. Only in the month of July, border patrol officials in the Del Rio region met 50,000 migrants, which is similar to the amount of people who would normally cross the border in a span of two to three years.
It is not uncommon for migrants to lose their lives while attempting to cross the United States border; however, the number of fatalities has been on the rise recently due to increased restrictions placed at the border by the United States government. These restrictions have been made even more stringent by a public health regulation that is related to a pandemic.
The region around Eagle Pass has developed into the primary entrance route for Venezuelans, who are fleeing the economic and political unrest in their home country and have been coming illegally in the United States in unprecedented numbers over the course of the last year.
In the month of July, authorities in the Del Rio district captured more over 14,000 Venezuelans who had crossed the river. An further group that has been coming in ever-greater numbers amid economic hardship and a crackdown on political opposition has been around 10,000 Cubans who have been put into detention.
13,000 undocumented migrants, the most majority of whom were from Haiti, reached the United States via Del Rio in September 2021, sparking a humanitarian catastrophe as U.S. officials sought to process them all.
Even though unauthorised crossings have decreased in the recent hot summer months, the Border Patrol agents along the southern border made more than 1.8 million apprehensions during the first 10 months of fiscal year 2022, and the number for the year ending Sept. 30 is expected to surpass two million, which would be a record high.