In 2022, eight hundred and ninety-five (895) illegal immigrant deaths on the Southwest Border (on U.S. territory) were reported by CBP, over 3 1/2 times the amount of deaths recorded in 2020, the last year of the Trump administration. Although 2022 is the last year of available reliable statistics, the numbers are sure to have risen. In addition, 22,000 rescues of individuals in distress occurred.
The majority of the deaths are due to exposure or to drowning and occurred in the sectors of Del Rio and Rio Grande Valley, Texas. And, a disturbing new trend has occurred: more women and girls are dying. In fact, the percentage of female deaths tripled, from 9 percent in 2020 to 27 percent in 2022. These figures suggest more women and girls are migrating illegally, incentivized by the Biden-Harris administration’s “catch and release” program and exploitation of U.S. asylum policies.
Alison Anderson, the wife of a U.S. Border Patrol agent of 16 years, has lived with her family on the Texas-Mexico border for almost a decade, first on a ranch near Big Bend National Park and then in Del Rio. Alison reported to me in an interview how she observes the exploitation of women firsthand:
“The groups, left on the U.S. side by the coyotes working for the cartels are mostly males…there are maybe two females in a group of forty. Countless women have been abandoned who refused to sleep with the males in the group … or because they are not physically strong enough to keep up…(and) they have no water or food … We’ve found pregnant eighteen year olds abandoned. We’ve found raped and brutalized and beaten teenagers abandoned and wandering around.”
Alison says she also sees those who “are the real victims—the women that get raped by over a dozen men and are left, and still haven’t been discovered. Their bones have been scattered by the critters and there’s nothing left of them.”
Although there is little to no data on human and sex trafficking at the U.S. border, eyewitness reports from Border Patrol, emergency medical professionals, and doctors highlight the increasing problem of females that enter the U.S. illegally—children, teenagers and women—being raped, abused, or sexually assaulted in some way.
A study done by Doctors Without Borders (2015-2016) sheds some light on the abuse migrants endure on their way from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) into Mexico. In this scenario, one out of three are sexually assaulted, including rape, assault and forced nudity. Over 68 percent report being victims of some type of violence.
Alison shares one of many stories where she and her husband discovered victims, this time a young child:
“My husband worked on a toddler, like eighteen months, a little girl from Brazil, who was pulled out of the river here. He was doing chest compressions on her while her 'mother'—I use that term very loosely—was in the back of a Border Patrol vehicle complaining about not being warm enough…unfortunately we were not able to save her, she was under the water too long… she had been savagely brutalized [by rape, the horrific details of which have been left out] … It was suspected the 'mother' used her as payment to cross the river…These are the stories that nobody hears about.”
Little attention is given to the inhumanity of the human trafficking facilitated and encouraged by the border policies of Kamala Harris and her administration.
Few in Harris’ administration or the media even acknowledge it, an emergency medical services professional working on the border told me in an interview. He underlines with sadness how illegal immigration on the U.S. southern border, facilitated by brutal Mexican cartels, “dehumanizes” people. How many “broken young women,” who—hopeful for a new life and having paid thousands of dollars to the cartels—will comply “with anything” to be trafficked across the border. How women and children are raped, shot, and exploited in “drop houses” on the U.S. side of the border. He notes how women wear bar-coded bands on their wrists—labeled like livestock—so that they and the money they owe can be tracked by the cartels.
This EMS professional has worked at the Firefly Border Patrol Processing Center at the Texas-Mexico border (between Del Rio and Eagle Pass). He says this about the female victims that he routinely treats: “Their design is to get to the U.S., and it’s the price they pay for going through. They’re either going to pay upfront (with money), or pay afterward with indentured servitude or sex service, but someone’s got to pay. What’s strange is that our government facilitates it. Once they cross the border, they get them where they need to go.”
Alison Anderson says that the rape victims she sees are often afraid of retaliation “or worse” by the cartels if they “speak up about their experiences,” and will keep silent to protect other family members that want to come to the U.S. She describes their experiences:
“One female in particular came through the ranch and was a wreck emotionally. She did confide in a Border Patrol agent that she had been raped and the location was very close to our house … Shortly after, two teenage girls were found that had been raped and left for dead. One was barely responsive and the other, when (Border Patrol) went to help her, acted violently because of the trauma she had been through.”
Without public awareness of how these women and children are physically and psychologically damaged by being trafficked across U.S. borders, there will be no support structure for the victims.
The EMS professional warns that these “broken young women … are ‘product,’ labeled and tracked by the cartels…and now they’re ours—going to school with our grandkids, in our systems and our communities…Beyond the economic impact (on American communities) it’s going to have tremendous psychological and health impacts—for years and years.”
In addition to the tragic impact on U.S. border communities, the toll on U.S. state, local, and federal law enforcement has not been effectively analyzed or considered. A senior Border Patrol official in McAllen, Texas, reported to me in 2022, that suicide rates, domestic violence, and alcoholism are significantly higher now among Border Patrol agents than before Biden-Harris took office.
Agents have been “greatly impacted” by observing on a daily basis the abuse of illegal aliens by the Mexican cartels—the rapes, killings, and assaults in the “drop houses” located on the U.S. side of the border, where illegals await trafficking into the interior of the United States.
The past four years of the Biden-Harris administration’s willful destruction of U.S. borders have been a brutal and dark period in U.S. history, in stark contrast to the values and principles of American sovereignty, integrity, and security. American citizens must know the truth before casting their ballots on November 5th.
Shea Bradley-Farrell, Ph.D. is a strategist in national security and foreign policy in Washington, D.C. and president of Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research and Education. Her latest book is Last Warning to the West. Follow her at counterpointinstititute.org or on “X” @DrShea_DC and @CounterpointDC.
