So many tragic deaths at Southern Border demand attention

Editor:

Much is being reported concerning the crisis on the Southern border. We hear many different accounts of the atrocities being committed against those making the journey from the Northern Triangle of Central America.

There are some who say it isn’t a crisis, just a temporary inconvenience. According to CBP (Customs and Border Protection) and HHS (The Dept. of Health and Human Services) 172,000 migrants were encountered in March, including 19,000 unaccompanied minors. This is up from February with 101,028 migrants which included 9,431 minors. CBP and HHS are predicting that anywhere from 22,000 to 26,000 unaccompanied minors will arrive monthly from now until September.

To address this “crisis” $47.5 billion was set aside from the $1.9 trillion CARES Act. HHS has discretionary authority to use these funds where needed. To date HHS is spending roughly $60 million a week to house the unaccompanied minors. Ten emergency facilities were set up after HHS filled its 7,700-bed facility. At this writing there were eight facilities in Texas housing at least 16,000 and two sites recently opened in California to house 2,500 migrant teens and children.

Mexican officials reported that in the first three months of 2021, 660 Mexican national minor children were returned to Mexico to be reunited with family. Since the first of the year 50 migrants who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande were recovered. Untold numbers have suffered and died making the journey through Cartel and gang controlled territories.

The videos are heart wrenching of the young boy crying because he was abandoned near the border, the two little girls, 3 and 5 years old, dropped over a 30-foot fence by smugglers and the five little girls, 1 to 6 years old, abandoned in the desert, saved by the grace of God and the rancher and his wife who live along the border, while Border Patrol Agents monitoring the wall rescued the boy and two little girls.

In California the SUV packed with 25 migrants broad sided by a semi leaving 13 dead including children. Recently the California based Coast Guard and first responders rescued migrants after the smugglers boat capsized in rough waters, several hospitalized and three drowned.

How much longer and at what cost do we continue to ignore these tragedies on our Southern borders?

Rochelle Moroz

Holley