Houston Bureau Chief
LA Times
https://apple.news/AG5wZ–G0T-2-rX8YfJpNog
Losing Rosario: A mother sent her daughter across the border. Before they could reunite, one died
Texas’ Brooks County and the Rio Grande Valley to the south have been popular smuggling routes for decades. Six months into 2021, deaths in the county had already reached 55, up from a total of 34 last year.
FALFURRIAS, TEXAS — Black feathers fell from circling vultures and snagged in the matted yellow grass. The ranch manager eyed the terrain and followed the stench. He found the woman’s body, like so many others in the south Texas brush: splayed in the weeds, arms dark with decay, raised above her head as if in surrender.
The rancher knew what to do. He had come upon 15 such migrants over the years. He called Brooks County sheriff’s dispatchers. They issued a Code 500, a dead body call, summoning a deputy, two Border Patrol agents, a justice of the peace and a funeral director.
They met the rancher shortly before noon at the gate of Los Palos Ranch, about 75 miles north of the border. Together they waded through knee-high, thorny weeds, mindful that the June heat rouses rattlesnakes from their burrows. The men gazed down to where she lay — face gone, skull picked clean by scavengers, hair and lower jaw dragged a few feet from a body not yet skeletal.
They guessed the woman had died of exhaustion or dehydration.
“They wait over there and move at night,” said the rancher, pointing to a nearby stand of mesquite, where he and his wife sometimes spy the passing shadows of those heading north.
The deputy wrapped the body in a white sheet. He then lifted it into a gray bag and helped the funeral director load it into the back of his Ford Explorer for transport to the sheriff’s morgue. It would be fingerprinted and tested for the coronavirus. The men found no trace of a name. It would be days before fingerprints told investigators that the woman was Rosario Yanira Girón de Orellana, a 41-year-old single mother who had traveled more than 1,500 miles from El Salvador.
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Read the rest of Molly’s report at the link.
Rather than recognizing the realities of the refugee situation in the Northern Triangle, Administrations of both parties have engaged in “killer policies.” But, not surprisingly to those who understand the situation, it hasn’t stopped individuals fleeing for their lives from failed states (for which we bear substantial responsibility).
Even death hasn’t proved to be a significant deterrent. So, why not just admit many of these folks legally, using available protection mechanisms administered by qualified Asylum Officers and better Immigration Judges? Why not encourage asylum seekers to apply at ports of entry by treating them fairly, respectfully, and humanely? Asylum is a legal and moral obligation, not an “option” or a “deterrent,”
We can diminish ourselves as a nation (and have done so), but it won’t stop human migration!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
07-18-21