More than a dozen unnamed migrants are supposedly buried in incomplete, sunken graves at a cemetery in Eagle Pass, Texas, who perished on the perilous trek they took to enter the United States illegally from Mexico.
PVC pipe crosses from Maverick County Cemetery have been placed at the bases of the improvised crosses, which are tagged with temporary identity cards that say, “John Doe.”
The migrants buried there, according to a TikTok video of the site with over 200,000 views, are individuals who perished trying to cross the Rio Grande River into Texas.
According to locals who live close to the cemetery, burials started in the middle of August, and at least one infant was among the more than a dozen remains interred, according to a report by Eagle Pass local station KSAT 12.
The Webb County Medical Examiner’s Office, according to the video’s description, is at capacity, and funeral establishments in Maverick County and Eagle Pass, Texas, are likewise at capacity and unable to accept any more dead.
This year has seen a record number of border crossing fatalities, in part because of the terrible June event in which scores of migrants perished on a tractor trailer while being smuggled into the United States due to oppressive heat.
A tractor-trailer outside of San Antonio, Texas, carrying 100 migrants left 53 of them dead from the extreme Texas heat and other dangerous circumstances.
With just 11 days remaining in Fiscal Year 2022, 30 migrants have died near the border in September alone, bringing the overall death toll for the year to 782.
With more than 557 recorded fatalities in Fiscal Year 2021, that number broke the previous record.
According to cemetery employees, plans exist to replace the PVC “crosses” with metal ones. Maverick County Judge David Saucedo also said that the commissioner’s court received a donation from a local person to build the more durable crosses.
I think it’s a humanitarian act, he said.
On TikTok, Tori Rogers, also known as middlegafemalefirearms, released a video on September 4 that has garnered about 18,000 likes and more than 1,000 comments from those who are outraged by the burial of migrants whose identities have not been verified.
The video’s photographs reveal a muddy region with several graves that are sinking into the earth and contain unidentifiable refugees. Some portions are flooded, and it doesn’t seem like any of the graves have any grass growing on them.
The grass on the burial sites was overgrown and untidy where it was present.
The cemetery is close to Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the busiest locations for migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande River illegally and seek refuge in the United States.
Judge Saucedo affirmed that Valdez’s company is involved in locating and interring the remains of dead unauthorized immigrants.
According to Saucedo, “The county has an agreement with all of the funeral businesses in Maverick County.” “Memorial Funeral Chapel is the only one taking them up right now.”
Saucedo worries that the cemetery would soon run out of room as well.
Nearly every day, pictures show migrants attempting the perilous Rio Grande River crossing, many of whom get caught in the powerful current.