Border Patrol appeals to migrant relatives as death toll now at 140 in El Paso Sector

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (Border Report) – Migrant deaths continue to climb toward record levels in a stretch of New Mexico desert.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, the El Paso Sector stretching from Hudspeth County, Texas to the New Mexico-Arizona state line has now recorded 140 migrant deaths this fiscal year. That compares to 149 in all of FY 2023 with two months of near triple-digit temperatures left this summer.

Migrant drownings in the Rio Grande and the irrigation canals that run parallel to it have claimed their share of lives, but most fatalities lately are being reported in the desert of Southern New Mexico – a well-known migrant smuggling corridor.

“It is unfortunate these criminal organizations are ruthless in lying to the migrants about the way they are going to cross into the United States illegally,” said Wendi S. Lee, special operations supervisor for the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector. “We encourage people to think about it twice before enduring this journey into the United States.”

The Border Patrol in recent years has been running public service ads online warning migrants, in English and Spanish, about the dangers of placing their lives in the hands of smugglers.

But as the death toll climbs, the agency is now focusing its message on U.S. residents who send money to relatives in Mexico, Central and South America to pay a smuggler.

“Sponsors are the key to getting the message not to expose their loved ones to the dangers. We want to reach out to the mothers and fathers, sisters, cousins, brothers: Do not pay that smuggler to have your relative be exposed to the dangers of crossing the border,” Lee said.

The Border Patrol has conducted 800 migrant rescue operations in the El Paso Sector since Oct. 1.

Across the border in Juarez, Mexico, authorities effected two separate migrant rescues in the past 48 hours.

The first involved five people suffering dehydration in the desert south of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on Wednesday. A second rescue took place Tuesday night, as Juarez municipal police officers pulled from the Rio Grande nine people who were struggling in the current.