Divers are searching for a 2-year-old girl who was swept away from her mother as they crossed the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas on Monday.
Border Patrol said its agents apprehended a woman from Haiti shortly after she crossed the treacherous waterway dividing Mexico from Texas.
They began scouring the water after she told them she had lost her daughter, a national of Brazil, while crossing.
Several agencies, including U.S. Border Patrol, Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue, Air and Marine Operations and law enforcement from Mexico are involved in the search.
Border Patrol said divers are searching for a 2-year-old girl who was swept away from her mother as they crossed the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas on Monday
Rescuers searched the river through Monday night and Tuesday with help from a remotely operated submersible
Several agencies, including U.S. Border Patrol, Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue, Air and Marine Operations and law enforcement from Mexico are involved in the search
‘Any time a child is lost it is a tragic event,’ said Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz.
‘I can not imagine the anguish the parents of this young girl must be feeling and I hope our search efforts pay off with a positive outcome.’
Border Patrol rescuers searched the river through Monday night with assistance from law enforcement teams from Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, and continued all day Tuesday with help from a remotely-operated submersible, a dive team and other officials.
With no reports of agents finding the little girl, it is likely she drowned in the strong currents.
This comes just one week after a migrant man from El Salvador, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, drowned along with his tiny 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, while trying to cross from the Mexican side in Matamoros.
According to Valeria’s mother, Tania Vanessa Ávalos, the pair had successfully crossed the river on their first attempt. But when he came back for his wife, the little girl tried to follow and although Martinez grabbed her, they were caught in the currents.
Ávalos watched as her family was swept away.
The heartbreaking photo of the father and daughter facedown by the riverbank with the girl’s arm around his neck shocked America and underscored the dangers that migrants undertake in trying to reach the U.S.
Just last week this heartbreaking photo emerged of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, who drowned along with his tiny daughter, Valeria, while trying to cross the Rio Grande
Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, 25, and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria, died last week after being swept away by the Rio Grande’s current
Tania Vanessa Ávalos, 21, survived as her husband and daughter were swept away by the current. She is pictured above at a news conference in El Salvador on June 28
Even President Donald Trump reacted to the photo last week, saying ‘I hate it,’ but he quickly pivoted to blaming Democrats for the conditions.
Other politicians have heaped blame for their deaths on the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis at the border.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke tweeted: ‘Trump is responsible for these deaths.’
‘As his administration refuses to follow our laws – preventing refugees from presenting themselves for asylum at our ports of entry – they cause families to cross between ports, ensuring greater suffering & death.
‘At the expense of our humanity, not to the benefit of our safety,’ he said.
The father and daughter were two of dozens who have drowned in the border river this year while crossing the border to seek asylum.
Others, including toddlers, have been dragged from under the water by border agents and resuscitated.
The Rio Grande is treacherous, Claudia Hernández, a Mexican municipal police officer who grew up near the river, told the Guardian.
‘I wouldn’t even go into that water to bathe or swim. There are springs and whirlpools and when the current takes you it can pull you under and you don’t resurface. I’ve been standing guard at the river for the last two months and it’s very sad to watch so many parents risking their lives with their children. It happens all the time,’ she said.
A total of 283 migrant deaths were recorded along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border last year.
The official death toll so far this year has yet to be released.
Migrant families have been coming over the border in unprecedented numbers in recent months, reaching a peak in May, when 84,000 adults and children traveling together were apprehended.
Nearly 500,000 immigrants have been detained at the border since the start of 2019, resulting in dangerous overcrowding in U.S. holding centers.