Mass Graves of Latin Immigrants Discovered in Texas, USA

US authorities have discovered mass graves of immigrants in Texas, but the state says no evidence were found of wrongdoing. The bodies of immigrants were found miles inland from the U.S.-Mexico border.

The lifeless bodies are gathered from the desert surrounding a checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas, in Brooks County. An investigation into the gruesome discovery pointed out that many of the migrants died after crossing into the USA that were apparently waiting hours for Border Patrol to respond to their 911 emergency calls.

The mass graves are in a small rural county in South Texas called Brooks County, a very poor county. The migrants mostly come from Central America and Mexico, and they find themselves crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to evade a checkpoint and walking about 40 miles in what amounts to 100-degree heat and 100% humidity.

Many of the individuals die. They don’t have identification on them. The process by which the county and officials in the area try to identify them is pretty meaningless. And these individuals are buried in a county cemetery, basically dumped into a hole in the ground.

For years, the previous sheriff would give the bodies to a funeral home, that charged  taxpayers over a thousand dollars per body, then buried them, anonymously, in a corner of this cemetery. The individuals were buried in biohazard trash bags.

Most of the people coming to this region here are asylum seekers. They’re fleeing horrible violence and economic depression in their own countries, mostly from Central America.

The Texas Observer reports this week the state has been denying birth certificates to children born to undocumented parents. Several cases of immigrant abuse have surfaced, both at the beginning of life and after death.

Furthermore, despite the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to everyone born in the United States, Texas officials have reportedly refused to provide birth certificates to children whose mothers lack U.S. visas. A group of mothers has filed a lawsuit against the practice.

Meanwhile, about 250 children held in a detention center for immigrants and asylum seekers were given an adult overdose of a hepatitis A vaccine earlier this month. Crystal Williams of the American Immigration Lawyers Association told HuffPost Live what happened.

The migrant children were given a double dose of the hepatitis A vaccine, while many of them very likely already had a hepatitis A vaccine just a couple of days before ?

Incidentally, several of the children did develop problems from the vaccinations. Whether it was from the hep A or not, we don’t know, because there were four to six vaccination given to each child.

But there are a couple of children whose legs swelled so much that they were unable to walk. There was a child with severe vomiting and diarrhea. And the solution to this, as it was to everything, or is to almost everything in the facility, is drink more water. That’s the answer to everything: Drink more water ?

The Texas Rangers, who are the preeminent and elite group in the state of Texas who do investigations, were tasked with investigating why there were mass graves in Brooks County. They found no criminal wrongdoing.

The largest funeral services company in the USA, Service Corporation International, was actually responsible for burying the bodies. Investigators found individuals buried four inches below the surface in shallow graves.

We found people who were buried without containers. We found individuals who were buried without any identification information whatsoever, people buried in trash bags, in bio-hazard bags.

We even uncovered an individual who was buriedin a milk crate. So, these are all violations of law that I just listed, and the Texas Rangers themselves—excuse me—found no criminal wrongdoing whatsoever in this case.

Democracy Now.org / ABC Flash Point Migrant News 2018.