Human smugglers have been taking advantage of record heat at the southern border to sneak migrants into the US, believing that there will be fewer border officers to stop them, according to officials.
A record number of dead migrants have been recovered at the border as temperatures soared above 100 degrees for 36 consecutive days, the US Border Patrol said.
“We are currently recording a significant number of migrant deaths in New Mexico due to the desert terrain and extreme heat,” the agency told the Border Report.
In the summer, smugglers at the border normally avoid the hottest hours of the day to move illegal immigrants into the US as conditions are considered too dangerous — and opt instead to cross in the cover of night when temperatures are more bearable, law enforcement sources tell The Post.
“We are seeing a lot of people crossing during the hottest part of the day, which is something we normally had not seen before,” Border Patrol Agent Andy Buckert explained.
“That ends up being a very dangerous thing.”
So far, 69 bodies have been recovered from the desert west of Texas’ sixth-largest city this fiscal year. The Border Patrol suspects the remains are migrants who died of heat exhaustion.
“One time the paramedics got there, and the temperature was still 107,” Buckert told the Border Report of a migrant’s body temperature. --->READ MORE HERE
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| AP Photo/Russell Contreras, File |
The U.S. Border Patrol is again calling on migrants not to trust smugglers who are telling them it’s safe to cross the southern New Mexico desert in triple-digit heat.
The plea comes as the number of deceased individuals found by border agents in the El Paso Sector this fiscal year reached 96 this week. Most of the bodies (69) were found in the Santa Teresa Border Patrol Station area of responsibility. It stretches from Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park to near Columbus, New Mexico. Border agents only found 29 bodies in that area in all of fiscal year 2022.
The Border Patrol says only medical examiners in the county where the bodies are found can definitively determine the identities of the bodies. But agency officials suspect most of them are migrants.
“We are currently recording a significant number of migrant deaths in New Mexico due to the desert terrain and extreme heat. Migrants do not have sufficient water and there is minimal shade,” the Border Patrol said in a statement to Border Report.
The El Paso, Texas-Santa Teresa, New Mexico region has experienced 36 consecutive days of temperatures above 100 degrees. The City of El Paso has set up “cooling stations” throughout the city and the National Weather Service issued several extreme heat advisories during that stretch.
But south of the border wall, smugglers in Mexico are giving migrants en route to the U.S. misleading advice that is killing them, border agents say.
“We are seeing a lot of people crossing during the hottest part of the day, which is something we normally had not seen before. That ends up being a very dangerous thing,” said Andy Buckert, a watch commander at the Santa Teresa Border Patrol Station. --->READ MORE HERE
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