Migrant deaths while crossing the US-Mexico border have reached 500 this year, with 134 in just one area.
Additional Border Patrol agents have been sent to the desert west of El Paso, where deaths have risen in 2023.
Most have died of heat exhaustion during this year’s record-breaking temperatures, perishing in dusty desert stretches that offer little shade or protection from the elements.
“Smugglers cross (immigrants) on the hottest days, and some don’t make it,” said one agent, speaking on condition of anonymity.
During one week in August five migrants died of heat exhaustion, federal sources told The Post, prompting agents from other areas to be transferred to El Paso, which is now the nation’s fourth-busiest border crossing.
Most of the 134 deaths in the area were heat-related, the US Border Patrol told The Post. That number is up 88% from last year’s 71 deaths.
An immigrant in need of medical attention received treatment from the Border Patrol’s Search, Trauma and Rescue team, the agency posted on social media on Aug. 9. US Border Patrol
The number of more than 500 nationwide in 2023 was first reported by the New York Times.
In one recent case in El Paso, agents found an unidentified Mexican man one hot afternoon during a 104-degree day, the agency said.
The immigrant had a seizure and had no pulse when found. Agents immediately began trying to revive him and called 911.
Border Patrol agents in the El Paso sector rescued 485 immigrants in fiscal year 2023. US Border Patrol
Migrants die at the US-Mexico border, near New Mexico State Highway 9. It has become a popular smuggling corridor.
An ambulance arrived just nine minutes later, but the man suffered a heart attack from his high body temperature and died, the department said.
In just one week in July, the bodies of 10 migrants believed to have died of heat exhaustion were found across the border, the Washington Office on Latin America reported.
In Arizona, a 9-year-old migrant boy died who had just crossed the border south of Tucson when he began having seizures.
Despite being transported to a hospital, the boy died of multiple organ failure, the Border Patrol said in a June press release. The child’s mother told investigators her son had no health problems and had been in sweltering heat and without water for more than an hour before he fell ill.
Typically, people smugglers lay low during the hottest hours, choosing to sneak across the border when the sun goes down and temperatures are coldest.
An immigrant who became stranded in Charity Canyon near Cloverdale, New Mexico was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents, the agency said Aug. 4. US Border Patrol
But this year – the second hottest on record in Texas – heartless cartel smugglers continued with illegal crossings despite triple temperatures in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Just outside of Texas, remote areas are hotbeds of migrant smuggling. There, criminals rely on less surveillance than the Border Patrol because of the scorching heat.
“[The dead] either lost in the desert or abandoned by coyotes (smugglers,)” added the agent. “We found a few feet from the highway.”
The agent was referring to New Mexico State Highway 9, which runs parallel to the US-Mexico border. Smugglers guide desperate and clueless illegal immigrants across the border, sources told The Post, and direct them to run onto the road — in some cases just a few hundred yards away.
Agents in the El Paso sector of the Border Patrol took a man to a waiting ambulance for medical treatment. US Border Patrol
911 beacons have been added throughout the most remote and common areas used for smuggling to help lost or disoriented immigrants get help. US Border Patrol
Often, a car is waiting to pick up immigrants and take them to their next location within the US.
The smugglers slipped back into Mexico and out of reach of American law enforcement while the migrants sped onto the road and into the getaway car. However, sometimes the driver gets scared and drives or just isn’t there in the first place.
This forces illegal immigrants, whose primary goal is to evade the Border Patrol, to stop and hope federal agents find them, while being exposed to the elements.
The Border Patrol, whose mission is to save all lives at the border regardless as part of its mission to keep it safe, slammed the Mexican cartels for their brutal tactics.
“Transnational criminal organizations continue to endanger the lives of the individuals they smuggle for their own financial gain,” Border Patrol Spokesman Landon Hutchens told The Post in a statement.
Human trafficking is a $13 billion a year business for the cartels, the US government estimates.
The smugglers’ brutality led to the deadliest human smuggling case in the US last year, when 53 migrants died trapped in an abandoned rig in San Antonio, Texas.
Federal prosecutors said the truck’s interior temperature reached 140 degrees, while the migrants were without air conditioning, water and locked in boxcars.
Bilingual security placards are now at high-traffic smuggling areas in the remote desert in an effort to prevent more deaths. US Border Patrol
“The El Paso sector has over 150 agents who are trained as Emergency Medical Technicians or Paramedics. Every Border Patrol Agent is trained in first aid and CPR. Agents are transferred in sectors to areas with increased migrant traffic according to operational needs,” the agency said in a statement.
In addition, the department has also placed 17 rescue beacons and 500 rescue stickers in high-traffic areas so that distressed migrants can get help even if they don’t have a phone.
Agents in the El Paso Sector have also rescued more than 485 migrants this fiscal year, which began in October.
“We want to save some lives,” Border Patrol Agent Fidel Baca told KFOX-TV.
“When we patrol this desert, we need to change immediately. We need to change our mentality from a law enforcement mentality to a search and rescue mentality.”
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