Four migrants, including an infant, drowned in the Rio Grande River over 3-day period, official says

By Raja Razek and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN

(CNN) — Law enforcement officers in Texas have recovered the bodies of four drowned migrants, including an infant, from the Rio Grande River along the US-Mexico border since Saturday, an official said.

The drownings come just days before Texas officials are expected to begin establishing a floating water barrier along parts of the Rio Grande in an attempt to deter illegal border crossings. The first 1,000 feet of the barrier are set to be deployed near Eagle Pass beginning July 7, Governor Gregg Abbott and other officials announced last month.

An unidentified woman and infant girl were found unresponsive in the river on Saturday, and a dead male and female were recovered on Sunday and Monday, respectively, Lieutenant Christopher Olivarez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in a tweet.

The woman and child were found after US Customs and Border Protection requested the assistance of the state public safety department’s Tactical Marine Unit regarding a possible infant drowning, Olivarez said.

The marine unit deployed two watercraft in the river, where they found four people, including the unresponsive woman and child, according to Olivarez. Chest compressions were performed on the unresponsive pair before they were transported to a local medical center, where they were pronounced dead, the spokesperson said.

The two survivors were turned over to US Customs and Border Protection, he said.

None of the deceased migrants possessed identifying documents and their identities are unknown, according to Olivarez.

In recent years, migrants have resorted to increasingly risky – and often fatal – paths to evade detection and enter the US. Near Eagle Pass in March, a migrant was found dead among a dozen people stowed away in a train car.

2022 was the deadliest year so far for migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, with at least 748 people dying at the border, CNN has reported.

Immigrant rights advocates have attributed the rise in deaths at the border to policies that have made it more difficult for migrants to seek refuge in the US, according to CNN’s previous reporting.

The worst such incident came in June 2022 when 53 migrants died after being packed into a tractor-trailer and abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio.

Texas officials announce floating border barrier

Gov. Abbott last month unveiled plans to set up a floating marine barrier along stretches of the Rio Grande, part of the state’s efforts to deter migrants hoping to illegally cross the southwest border.

“We can put mile after mile after mile of these buoys,” the governor said during a bill signing in Austin, Texas. He added, “What these buoys will allow us to do is to prevent people from even getting to the border.”

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Steven McCraw claimed the barrier was designed and tested by the US Customs and Border Protection and explained the buoys can be “quickly deployed” and moved.

“We don’t want anybody to get hurt,” McGraw said. “In fact, we want to prevent people from getting hurt, prevent people from drowning.”

A Texas Army National Guard member drowned last year while attempting to rescue migrants crossing the Rio Grande, US Rep. Tony Gonzales said at the time.

The buoys will be anchored to the bottom of the waterway and will be roughly four to six feet in height depending on the water level, according to McGraw. The first barrier installation will cost under $1 million, he said.

McGraw said that surpassing the barrier is possible but “takes great effort, specialized skills, and equipment.”

David Donatti, an attorney for the ACLU of Texas, dismissed the water barrier as “the latest in a chain of gifts from the state to private contractors to fuel the governor’s manufactured crisis at the border.”

“The floating balls will not address the real and important reasons people are coming to the United States. The buoys are a blight on Texas’s moral conscience,” Donatti said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Rosa Flores contributed to this report.