Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Border Chronicle, a weekly newsletter that publishes original on-the-ground reporting, analysis, and commentary from the U.S.-Mexico border. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
When a desperate family, searching for a missing loved one, felt as if they had no one in the world to help them, they’d soon find they had Eduardo “Eddie” Canales, founder of the South Texas Human Rights Center.
From the first time I met Eddie in 2013, when he began working in the remote ranchlands of Brooks County, until his death in July from pancreatic cancer, he was always busy, whether it be on the phone, soothing families of the missing, or receiving them at the center to launch search and rescue operations. He also placed water stations on busy migration corridors and worked with forensic anthropologists to identify those who had died in the rugged South Texas terrain.
