Free Republic

A gut-wrenching photograph late last month of a father and daughter in the Rio Grande – while attempting to cross from Mexico into the United States – sharply exacerbated existing tensions over the ongoing border and migration crisis dividing Americans. But while politicians and Presidential hopefuls expressed their outrage and pointed fingers at the Trump administration, official data indicates that Mexico-U.S. border deaths have actually declined in the first two years of the current administration. According to statistics compiled by the United States Border Patrol, there were 298 border deaths in 2017 and 283 in 2018, making it an average...

A man U.S. federal authorities alleged was the ringleader of a major immigrant smuggling organization -- which was linked to two deaths this summer -- was arrested Friday in El Paso on charges of immigrant smuggling. Ruben Patrick Valdes, a U.S. citizen who lives in Juárez, was indicted Aug. 7 by a federal grand jury in El Paso with one count of conspiracy to bring and attempt to bring undocumented immigrants across the U.S. border illegally. His brother, Roman Martin Valdes, who is a fugitive, also is charged with immigrant smuggling, according to the indictment that was unsealed Friday. The...

<p>Sen. Micaela Aguilar González (at microphone) and other Mexican officials discuss immigrants' deaths along the border.</p> <p>A delegation of Mexican senators wants the U.S. government to help reduce the record death toll at the Arizona border by creating legal routes for Mexicans to find work here.</p>