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Record numbers of migrants die at the US-Mexico border

Migrants wait to be processed after crossing into the United States near the end of a border wall Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022, near Yuma, Arizona, United States. (AP photo).

A record number of migrants at the US-Mexico border have died so far in this fiscal year, according to a report.

About 750 migrants have lost their lives at the southern border this fiscal year, according to Department of Homeland Security figures shared with CNN.  

Since October 1 of last year, when fiscal 2022 started, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have registered 748 migrant deaths at the border.

The CNN report said migrants often face treacherous terrain when crossing the border -- including oppressive desert heat, dangerous waters and falling from the border wall.

The number of deaths registered in fiscal 2021 was 557 which set a grim record. This year’s figure it set to surpass that.

The final figure for deaths is likely to continue climbing in September, as high temperatures persist in much of the Southwest.

And the death figure announced by DHS only takes into account deaths confirmed by border officials. Hundreds of people who have perished in their attempts to enter the United States might not have been counted.

Migration has remained high for much of 2022, and more migrants are coming from beyond Mexico and Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The rise in migrants from farther-away countries could also contribute to the crossing’s lethality.

Central American immigrants are fleeing “the hell” that the United States created for them in their countries, according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist.

Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, said in an interview with Press TV that immigrants who come the US “are being deprived, not just of basic human rights and their dignity, but the rule of law and our historical responsibility.”

“Regardless of the right of them to be here, separating children from their parents, caging people, denying them the basic necessities of life, especially regarding hygiene, and blaming them for these issues is the hallmark of a depraved human being,” he stated, commenting on a statement by former President Donald Trump who told undocumented immigrants that they should not choose traveling to America if they are unhappy with the conditions that await them at detention centers.

“The other side of this is the historical context. Why are these immigrants here? What role did the US play in creating the hell from where they’re escaping? Unknown, or willingly unknown to most Americans, many of the drug cartels these migrants are escaping were the military officers and government officials who needed a new career path after the dirty wars of Central America ended, which was funded by the US and the torturers, murderers, and extortionists were trained by the School of the Americas in Georgia,” Hoenig noted.


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