Eagle Pass is using COVID-era refrigerated trailer morgues to store migrant bodies as river drowning and dehydration deaths soar

In border hot spot Eagle Pass, the deadliest place to cross the US-Mexico border, the morgue has run out of space to keep migrant bodies.

Local authorities are currently using a refrigerated trailer, bought during the pandemic, to house 28 bodies, although the space is only meant for 20, reported the Washington Post. 

Among them, an entire Venezuelan family who drowned together. 

About half of border crossers are not identified, as some migrants don't have ID on them when their bloated bodies are pulled from the river. 

Most are either drownings or have died from exposure to heat or dehydration on remote and vast Texas ranches. 

Local authorities tasked with managing the bodies, documenting them and possibly reaching out to family members face extraordinary challenges, like remains that have been in the river so long that the current has literally washed away facial features.

'River. River. Ranch. Ranch,' a local justice of the peace identified as Smith said while looking at photos of the dead on her phone. It's her decision whether to request an autopsy for a migrant.

Local authorities are currently using a refrigerated trailer, bought during the pandemic, to house 28 bodies, although the space is only meant for 20

The grim interior of the makeshift morgue that became a symbol of the COVID pandemic 

A migrant is pulled from the water near Eagle Pass, Texas in video shared with DailyMail.com in February 

Migrants wade across the danger Rio Grande, the river the separates the US and Mexico

A mother and her child are rescued from the water by members of the Texas National Guard

'John Doe. Jane Doe. John Doe. Fetus, the mother gave birth at the river, but the baby didn’t survive. They come from everywhere. I say a little prayer for each one.'

More than 1.7 million migrants have illegally crossed the border from October to March of this year, according to federal statistics. 

The nation has been seeing historic numbers of migrants entering the country since 2021, having unintended consequences and taxing the scant resources in places like Eagle Pass.  

Maverick County had only put aside $100,000 for handling migrant bodies, but will spend more than $1 million, the county attorney told the Washington paper.

The record numbers of border crossings have also led to a record number in rescues, as migrants are often plucked from the river that separates Texas and Mexico. 

Known as the Rio Grande in the US, the river is called the Rio Bravo, or ferocious, in Mexico.

Border Patrol agents save a child from drowning along the Texas border

An entire family in danger of drowning, is pulled from the river by Texas law enforcement 

A woman and several children were among those saved

A child is bundled up after being plucked from the Rio Grande

Border Patrol rescues of migrants have also surged to 37,323 in 2023.

By comparison, 2019 saw only 2,920 rescued before the border crisis began. 

At least 895 migrant died crossing into the US in 2022, the last year for which data is available. 

The United Nations named the US-Mexico border the deadliest migration land route in the world last year.  

The Del Rio, which Eagle Pass is a part of was the deadliest. 

Migrant crossings have dropped in Eagle Pass since January 

A Mexican National Guardsman shines a light as a police officer uses a stick to rescue a woman from Columbia who was rapidly being pulled downstream by the rushing current while attempting to cross the Rio Grande

A man attempts to resuscitate a man from Mexico who is unconscious and lays on the shore of the Rio Grande River near Eagle Pass

 But the mounting toll is more than just a financial one.

Many migrants are buried without their families ever knowing what happened to them, as lack of ID prevents notification. 

American first responders who pull the bloated bodies from the river also feel it.

Firefighter and emergency medical technician Marcos Kypuros rescued severn children in just weeks in November. 

'It got to the point where I’d put them in the body bags in a way so that I wouldn’t have to even see their faces anymore,' he told the outlet.

He avoid talking about his work with family but has to detail the body retrievals at work in painful detail.

Deputy Sgt. Aaron Horta is tasked with documenting the remains. 

He catalogues scars, tattoos, birthmarks and clothing to help ID a migrant whose family might come looking for them.

Before he photographs the deceased, he applies Vicks VapoRub under his nose and takes menthol lozenges to mask the smell of decaying corpses. 

'If they’ve been in the water awhile, their skin gets pruned and webby and starts to peel off. Their eyes, nose and mouth get swollen. For a while, I couldn’t sleep,' Horta said.