There have been at least 240 border deaths yearly since tracking began in 1998.
There have been at least 240 border deaths yearly since tracking began in 1998 . . . and I wish I cared more.
O n Monday, June 27, a semi-trailer filled with at least 62 dead and dying illegal immigrants was discovered on the outskirts of San Antonio. As of today, 53 are confirmed dead, with the survivors receiving treatment in an area hospital. The driver, Homero Zamorano of Pasadena, Texas, was arrested on a count of immigrant-smuggling resulting in death on Wednesday. According to Border Patrol statistics, there have been at least 240 border deaths yearly since tracking began in 1998 . . . and I don’t think most people care.
Of course, I’m not saying they shouldn’t care. We all should care. This is tragic and horrifying. But if accounts such as the one above and those detailed below by the New York Times aren’t rousing the country to action, I’m unsure what will:
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In 2003, sheriff’s deputies discovered the bodies of 17 migrants, including a 7-year-old boy, inside an overheated trailer truck in Victoria, a city in southern Texas. Officials located the trailer at a truck stop and found that the migrants trapped inside had attempted to punch out air holes so they could breathe. Another migrant who was in the trailer later died at a hospital.
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In 2012, a Ford pickup carrying more than 20 undocumented migrants struck two trees, killing 15 people.
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Ten men died in San Antonio in 2017 after riding in a tractor-trailer packed with as many as 200 migrants, and nearly 30 more were hospitalized. For hours, the people in the trailer did not have water, fresh air or food. The driver was sentenced to life in prison.
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An S.U.V. packed with undocumented migrants crashed in rural South Texas in 2019 after it was chased by police. Six people died. The vehicle had veered into a ditch in rainy weather.
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In March 2021, 13 people were killed in a remote stretch of Southern California when a crammed Ford Expedition drove into the path of a tractor-trailer.
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Last August, at least 10 people died and 20 others were injured when a van crashed in South Texas.
The late Patrice O’Neal had a brilliant standup routine, linked here, self-deprecatingly revealing our shared inability to be bothered by all sorts of far-flung horrors — how bored we are by carnage with which we don’t connect. We cannot provide each death equal emotional weight, no matter how much we wish to do so. In a burst of Joycean self-reflection, I look at the headline “53 found dead in truck” and watch myself shrug and continue perusing for the latest about General Mills stocks. That’s it? I can’t even muster a tongue-cluck and a muttered “Oh, what a shame.” The border is one of those places where we tolerate human suffering and scroll past the latest tragic account because the answers are too complex and politically costly.
The deaths we do care about are revealing. Democrats focus on school-shooting deaths — another horror, but one that attracts far more attention — in order to push gun control. Republicans highlight murder increases in big cities because we get to dunk on the Democrats running those cities. Both have a point. Murder is a unique evil, and it should be reduced, no matter where it happens or to whom it happens. However, we spend far more time beating each other over the head with body counts than developing and effecting life-saving policies.
Carine Hajjar reported on the border situation for National Review recently, and recounted more terrible details:
At Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, the NGO where I met Jorge, migrants share harrowing stories of their own. They report that the jungles of Panama and Colombia are particularly dangerous; a Venezuelan migrant told me that stragglers in northbound caravans are targeted by indigenous groups and roving bands. They’ll “kill, rape, steal. . . . They’ll violate women, children, and even men.”
The lesson of all this suffering is clear: To have a truly humane border, and a system that keeps both migrants and Americans safe, there must be order. The establishment of order, however, need not preclude a welcoming attitude. Sheriff Coe, like most of the citizens and law-enforcement officials I encountered, wants order and generosity. “Shorter lines, better checks, speed up the process,” he says. “There’s room” in such circumstances “to allow more people to come in legally.”
Until then, however, the migrants will follow the incentives. “Whatever they say in D.C. has a ripple effect all the way through,” says Volcsko, the former Border Patrol agent.
People want to be in the United States and desire it so profoundly as to endure constant abuse. Trucks laden with goods we enjoy will need to keep rolling through the checkpoints, and some of these trucks will be used to transfer illegal persons over the border. A wall will not stop such entries, open borders will not serve them or our citizenry, and so we seem to have come to accept that death on our border is a price we’re comfortable paying. After all, you and I can turn off the news report and click on a more exciting article about AOC’s cuticles resembling Stalin. Hundreds of border deaths are banal. God help us.