America's southern borders, a slaughterhouse for immigrant
According to Newsweek, an analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows that the death rate of migrant women on the southern border has increased, with at least 19 children under the age of 10 having died at the border since 2016.
According to data gathered by the "No More Deaths" campaign, 257 people have died in Del Rio County, Texas, in just a single year. Human rights organizations have called for action to halt the trend and described the death toll as astounding. El Paso, which encompasses a large portion of New Mexico and Texas, has been one of the deadliest areas of the southern border in recent years, with many migrant deaths taking place there, according to the No More Deaths campaign.
The 125,000-square-mile El Paso region has seen a dramatic rise in the number of fatal migrant incidents over the last two years, from 72 in 2022 to 168 in 2024. More than 500 migrant women have been killed along the southern border since 2021, indicating a high death rate for these women migrants.
El Paso is currently the deadliest city in the United States, according to rescue organizations; in the last two years, 105 migrant women, with an average age of 19, have perished there. However, the information that is currently available indicates that while victims were mostly between the ages of 21 and 45, children as young as one year old were also victims in certain instances.
The most frequent causes of death along the southern U.S. border are still heat exposure, dehydration, and, of course, water canals; according to El Paso officials, many people pass away in these areas each year. In the past 10 years, more than 100 people have drowned in these canals, almost all of them migrants.
Yet, research indicates that falls from the border wall have contributed to some of the migrant deaths at the southern U.S. border; in 2024, there were roughly seven cases, in 2023, there were roughly fifteen, and in 2022, there were roughly eight. However, experts stress that the actual number of migrant deaths on the US southern border is always many times lower; this is due to a number of factors, including border officials' inaccurate reporting.
At the same time, US President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office in a few weeks, appointed Kristi Noem to the Department of Homeland Security in order to carry out his campaign pledge to deport one million immigrants in order to curb immigration. Similar to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who installed barbed wire in the river to keep immigrants out, Noem takes a tough stance on the border. In order to guarantee that immigrants cannot enter the country through any means, Trump also appointed Tom Homan as a border official.