A Texas National Guard soldier drowned while attempting to rescue migrants in a river who’d been trying to cross the state’s southern border with Mexico.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) confirmed that the incident took place in Eagle Pass to Fox News and said that the solider’s body had been recovered.
Texas congressman, Representative Tony Gonzales, took to Twitter to offer his condolences and confirm the death.
“I’m heartbroken to hear of the death of a Texas National Guard soldier. Our Citizen-Soldiers respond to our toughest challenges including the border crisis. As we’ve seen with the deaths of migrants & now the tragic loss of a guardsman, this crisis can be deadly for all involved,” the Republican lawmaker tweeted.
The Independent reached out to the Texas National Guard for confirmation but did not immediately hear back.
This recent incident comes on the heels of arrests and expulsions by US officials at the Mexican border rising to their highest level in at least two decades, with more than one million migrants detained in the past six months.
Statistics released by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) showed that its agents made 209,906 arrests along the country’s southern border in March, on top of 803,607 since October, making for a six month total of 1,013,513.
And in March, the US Customs and Border Protection processed migrants 221,303 times along the Mexican border last month, making it the highest peak in the Biden administration since July 2021 when US officials recorded 213,593 migrant encounters.
