BROOKS COUNTY, Texas — Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez said the County is not only being overrun by human smugglers, but his department is being overwhelmed by immigrant bodies.
Martinez said this year in Brooks County, law enforcement has discovered nearly 80 dead immigrants.
Martinez tells 3News that last week, his deputies recovered 13 immigrant bodies in six days. Those discoveries in the rough and rugged brush country brings the total number of bodies found so far this year to 78.
Martinez also pointed it out that he only has a total of eight sworn officers in his department.
The lack of manpower along with the Border Patrol transferring a number of its officers from its Falfurrias office down to the border are some of the factors that the sheriff believes is contributing to the higher number of immigrant deaths this year.
Martinez said in a recent meeting in McAllen with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, he gave the secretary some advice.
"You need to keep this station afloat," Martinez said. "You need to make sure all the men and women who belong here stay here, especially on the medical side because there's some of them who can actually get saved if we get to them on time."
Meanwhile in Del Rio, which is another hotspot for immigrants to cross over, the BP has had to take a number of its officers out of the field to help with processing up to 500 of those folks each day.
Cuidad Acuna is relatively safe compared to the Rio Grande Valley, where they have two cartels fighting for territory. There's only one cartel south of us.
The BP there has had to create a temporary intake station under the port of entry bridge to provide some much-needed shade to keep everyone cooler under the blazing heat.
Martinez said the human smuggling operations that have made it across the border and into the County are trying to move across desert like terrain.
It's a journey that is proving to be a death march for too many people.