Friday, April 12, 2019

Something else the President's never heard....


Yes, that was true in 2007:

At the Side Door Cafe in Falfurrias, Texas, body counts enter conversations as naturally as the price of feed, or the cost of repairing torn fences. “I removed 11 bodies last year from my ranch, 12 the year before,” said prominent local landowner Presnall Cage. “I found four so far this year.” Sometimes, Cage said, he has taken survivors to a hospital; mostly, however, time and the sun have done their jobs, and it is too late.

As increased U.S. border security closes certain routes, undocumented migrants continue to come but squeeze onto fewer, more dangerous and isolated pathways to America’s interior. One of these is the network of trails that bypasses the last Border Patrol checkpoint traveling north on Hwy. 281, in Brooks County. That change is having a dramatic ripple effect on the county (total pop: 7,685), and on people who have lived here for generations.

And the response of the county was compassion:

For one thing, the dead are breaking the budget. County officials earmarked $16,000 in fiscal 2007 for handling deceased indigents. That category includes the remains of undocumented Mexicans and other would-be migrants found within county lines. But by May, Brooks County had already spent $34,195 on autopsies and burials, “and we’re just heading into the hot months now,” said County Judge Raul Ramirez. It’s also rattlesnake mating season, noted the judge, who grew up on the King Ranch. It’s the time when the serpents move around most, biting the unwary and those who walk in grass and sand without high boots.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to do this. I’d spend $120,000 if I had to because it’s the right thing to do,” Ramirez said in his modest office on Allen Street in Falfurrias (population 5,020), the county seat. “But we could be helping more of our own.” About a third of Brooks residents live below the poverty line; average household income is $21,000; jobs are just plain scarce.

It was still true in 2014:

In Brooks County, Texas, where the mercury regularly tops 100 degrees in the summer, Chief Deputy Benny Martinez says he prays for rain — because it keeps the body count down.

Even though his county is 70 miles north of the border, it's a crossing point for undocumented migrants coming from Central America, the source of a surge that has plunged the U.S. immigration system into crisis.

"We have recovered 37 bodies this year," Martinez told NBC Nightly News. "And it's fair to say every one we recover, we are missing five or 10. There's a lot of bodies out there."

Last year, Border Patrol documented 445 deaths of migrants coming to the United States — the third-highest number since 1998. The National Foundation for American Policy estimates an immigrant trying to sneak into the country today is eight times more likely to die than one a decade ago.

"I really do pray for rain every day," Martinez said. "We need some help with moisture to keep the body count down."
And what does the President of the United States want to do in 2019?
 
And he wants to be sure you know he means it.
 
The man is not fit to feed pigs.
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