Daily Caller field reporter Jorge Ventura told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s administration is not responding to the surging number of deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Officials in Eagle Pass, Texas, previously told Ventura that the community has become so overwhelmed with dead migrants, that officials have begun storing their bodies in refrigerator trailers and burying them in local cemeteries if they are unable to identify them. Authorities and border patrol agents currently recover an average of one to two deceased migrants per day, including increasing numbers of pregnant women and children.
“They are also receiving way too many bodies. Webb County right now is receiving bodies from not only Maverick County, but eight different counties,” Ventura said. “And here, Laura, it’s become unfortunately the new normal, the amount of deaths we’re seeing per day here.”
Maverick County Deputy Constable Frank Bowles also told Ventura that the county will likely open up another cemetery plot to bury more expected migrants who die on the journey. He said the county sometimes receive 8 to 10 bodies in one day.
Ingraham said the large capacity of makeshift graves marking the unidentified migrants in the cemetery proves that an open border “brings death.” Ventura responded that migrant deaths surged from one to two annually to a daily occurrence under Biden. (RELATED: Border Patrol Agents Recover Deceased Migrant’s Body From Rio Grande)
“It’s a true humanitarian crisis and one thing that the sheriff tells me as well is it’s mentally taken a toll on Maverick County Sheriffs, the men and women here who are dealing with the deaths every single day,” Ventura said. “They were telling me they were only seeing, before Biden came in, maybe one or two deaths per year. That’s become the new daily occurrence and Laura, right after that interview with Frank Bowles, an hour later another migrant drowned. Our cameraman Thomas Cooper was on the scene to capture the drone. It was a Honduran national is what our sheriffs are telling us.”
“And what they’re saying is they don’t know what to do next,” he continued. “They’re scrambling to find room, they might have to contact the state of Texas and request more refrigerator trailers as they’re getting no answer from the Biden administration on this issue at all. It’s a true humanitarian crisis and unfortunately it’s the new normal in Eagle Pass.”
Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border more than doubled under the Biden administration, surpassing 2 million since October 2021. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported encountering a total of 458,088 migrants at the border in the 2020 fiscal year, Customs. This number rose to 1.7 million and then to 2,150,639 in 2022.