Firefighters in Eagle Pass, the border hotspot that Donald Trump will visit today, pulled dozens of bodies from the Rio Grande and declared the situation “crazy.”
So far this year, crews from the three stations have recovered the bodies of 17 dead illegal migrants, up from 46 last year. The youngest was just two years old.
More drowned children have been recovered, as well as hundreds of illegal migrants rescued and treated for broken bones, cuts and hypothermia, and women in labor helped to get ashore.
“It’s overwhelming,” Eagle Pass Fire Chief Manuel Mello told DailyMail.com. ‘It has been an extremely difficult year.
“Our firefighters are seeing bodies in the river ranging from two months to 50 years old. They see trauma, broken legs, broken arms, cardiac arrest, pregnant women in labor, people needing dialysis.
A caravan wades past a series of buoys, built to deter migrants crossing the Rio Grande River, as they search for an opening in the concertina wire to enter Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., July 27, 2023
Eagle Pass Fire Chief Manuel Mello urged migrants not to enter illegally by crossing the river and recounted how firefighters have had to recover dozens of bodies.
‘They go out in the morning and can spend three to four hours recovering bodies. At one point they were seeing three or four drownings a day.”
Eagle Pass is a town of just 30,000 residents, but in December it was seeing more than 1,000 migrants arriving per day.
The city has been embroiled in an extraordinary war between the federal and state governments over enforcement after Texas Governor Greg Abbott took military control of an area called Shelby Park along the river.
Barbed wire and shipping containers have been erected to prevent migrants from crossing the border.
Trump will visit Eagle Pass today, while 525 miles away Joe Biden will also be at the border in Brownsville, Texas.
Donald Trump, pictured here at the US-Mexico border wall in Alamo, Texas on January 12, 2021, will visit Eagle Pass, Texas
Aerial view of migrants crossing the Rio Grande River from Piedras Negras, Mexico, to Eagle Pass, United States. December 21, 2023
Toys are left on the bank of the Rio Grande River as migrants cross the river from Mexico to the US in Eagle Pass, Texas, US, February 28, 2024
The fire chief said there was a simple, nonpolitical response to the chaos.
That meant no migrants would come and existing laws would be enforced.
“If they would stop this madness, my problems would be over,” he said.
‘Crossing illegally is not the right choice. It’s risky for them, risky for firefighters. If people migrated properly, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
A few days ago, one of his crew members was called to a traffic accident in which an illegal immigrant was struck and killed on the highway from Eagle Pass.
Between September and February, they were called to a total of 486 incidents involving undocumented migrants.
In addition to the deaths, 64 had trauma injuries, 30 lacerations, 208 had medical conditions and 27 were pregnancy related.
A man attempts to resuscitate an unconscious Mexican man on the banks of the Rio Grande River in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, February 24, 2024. Moments earlier, the now unconscious man had led a group of migrants to prison. Rio Grande River intending to cross Eagle Pass, Texas
A Mexican National Guardsman shines a light as a police officer uses a baton to rescue a Columbia woman who was quickly pulled downstream by the rushing current as she attempted to cross the Rio Grande River into Eagle Pass, Texas
There is emotional pressure on the firefighters: two leave and others have to take time off.
“We find the bodies floating along the river, sometimes they are along the edge of the river, sometimes they are stuck on rocks,” Chief Mello said. ‘Sometimes it’s a visual drowning, there’s someone there.
‘We’ll pick them up further up the river. We take the body to the river bank. We call law enforcement. Then the justice of the peace comes and declares the body dead. Then the funeral home comes and takes them away.
‘I always ask people if they have children, and would you let them in the river? I wouldn’t do that myself.’