A nine-year-old Mexican boy died after attempting to get across the Rio Grande from Mexico to the United States, according to U.S. border authorities.
The horrific incident is the first known loss of life of a child at the border amid an influx of thousands of unaccompanied children and families attempting to enter the U.S. each week since President Joe Biden took office in January. The numbers are rising more with every week as the Biden administration struggles to get control of the international boundary.
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Customs and Border Protection disclosed Thursday that Border Patrol agents on boat patrol in Eagle Pass, Texas, discovered the boy, along with a Guatemalan woman and her three-year-old child, stranded on a tiny island technically on the Mexican side of the river last Saturday. The agency did not disclose if the boy was parentless or related to the woman.
All three people were found unresponsive, and agents began administering first aid while taking them to shore. The mother and her three-year-old regained consciousness. Eagle Pass Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services arrived on scene and took over resuscitation efforts on the boy, but they were unable to save him. He was declared dead by medical officials.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of this small child,” said Austin Skero II, Border Patrol’s chief for the Del Rio, Texas, region. “During these hard times our agents remain resilient, and I am extremely proud of their efforts to preserve human life.”
The image of a migrant father and toddler washed up on the side of the Rio Grande amid the 2019 humanitarian border crisis became a symbol of the risks many have taken to get to the U.S.
Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, drowned in June 2019 at the very end of the family’s 1,500-mile journey from El Salvador. Days earlier, the bodies of a 20-year-old woman, two babies, and a toddler were found nearby along the same river.
Many have met the same fate — dying after traveling for weeks by foot, bus, and train in hopes of escaping poverty and violence. The coronavirus pandemic has made people more desperate to escape, and Republicans have claimed that Biden’s friendlier posture toward illegal immigration is a factor.
Data from fiscal 2019 shows that the bodies of 300 people were found by U.S. Border Patrol agents working on the U.S. side of the border. Agents on the southwest boundary arrested more than 851,000 people who illegally crossed into the country that year.
Between 1998 and 2019, Border Patrol agents on the southern border recovered approximately 7,800 bodies. Agents rescue several thousand people in the desert, mountains, and water every year.
Border Patrol data since 1998 shows a shift in the demographics of people illegally crossing the border. Mostly adults were arrested in the 2000s and early 2010s, but that has shifted to include greater percentages of families and children.
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Across the nine regions that Border Patrol divides the U.S.-Mexico border into, the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley sections of southeastern Texas were the most deadly for migrants.
