In July, a sweltering tractor trailer ride in Texas became the latest
harrowing example of the perils of crossing the U.S. border illegally.
From the hospital, one survivor told authorities that he had paid smugglers to get him across the Rio Grande and then cram him on a northbound truck with what he guessed were nearly 100 people. The survivor managed to keep breathing in the pitch black trailer without food or water.
But when the doors were opened in a San Antonio Walmart parking lot,
eight migrants were dead, their bodies “lying on the floor like meat,”
the truck’s driver subsequently said. Another two expired later.
Those 10 deaths are among the 255 known migrant fatalities recorded by the International Organization for Migration
in the first eight months of 2017. That’s up from 240 in the same
period last year. Experts aren’t certain what’s causing the recent
increase; verifying numbers is inherently difficult when it comes to an
endeavor whose very mission is to avoid detection by the authorities.
However, academics and the U.S. Border Patrol largely agree on the
long-term trends, which reveal a clear pattern. Between 1998 and 2016,
the number of unauthorized border-crossers who were captured — which is
viewed as the best proxy for the rate of illegal crossings — has plunged
70 percent in the southwest U.S. border region, according to data from
the Border Patrol. During that same period, yearly immigrant deaths have
risen some 20 percent. (The increase in death rate, which was steady
for many years, was interrupted for several years by a temporary surge
in migrants from Central America, which we’ll explain, only to resume
its upward march.)
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Source: ProPublica
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