A Honduran woman drowned in the Rio Grande this week and Border Patrol agents were still searching Thursday for her 3-year-old boy, swept away with her.
The woman and child appear to be the latest casualties of the illegal immigrant surge that’s left a spate of tragic deaths in its wake this year.
Authorities said they spotted a group of 12 suspected illegal immigrants attempting to cross the river at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Agents responded and some in the group said they’d been with a woman and her son, but the two had been swept away by the current.
On Wednesday agents spotted a body they believed to be the missing 28-year-old woman.
They said Thursday they were still using “all available resources” searching for the 3-year-old.
“This is heartbreaking tragedy that occurs too often,” said Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz.
Earlier this summer images of a father and daughter drowned on the bank of the Rio Grande swept through the border security debate.
Immigrant-rights activists said the father and daughter were victims of U.S. immigration policy, and that they’d wanted to attempt to claim asylum but didn’t want to wait in line, so they attempted to cross illegally,
News reports later challenged that version, with friends revealing the family was seeking better jobs — not usually a case for asylum — and that they had been warned not to attempt to cross illegally.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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