Free Republic

S. Border Patrol is asking for the public's help to combat a new and dangerous method immigrants are using to get past checkpoints undetected. “Falfurrias checkpoint is one of the busiest checkpoints in the country with regard to seizures and apprehensions,” said Omar Zamora, the spokesperson for Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector. “In addition to that we also inspect more than 8,000 vehicles per day.” So far this year, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 7,000 immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally at the Falfurrias checkpoint. Agents are seeing more immigrants take bold and dangerous measures to...

Dead bodies of illegal immigrants are turning up in south Texas as Central Americans pour across the U.S.-Mexico border, and a veterinarian who ranches cattle 70 miles from ground zero has the photos to prove it. Dr. Mike 'Doc' Vickers of Brooks County, Texas showed some of the grisly images to MailOnline, all of them far too grotesque to publish unedited. One picture shows a corpse propped up against a tree near his ranch in Brooks County, his eyes missing and dried blood cascading down his shirtless body. 'This guy, obviously, had to lay down up against that tree, and...

Michael Vickers’s ranch 113 kilometres north of the US–Mexico border in Brooks County, Texas, is near a Border Patrol checkpoint. Undocumented migrants trek through the harsh brushland onto his property to avoid capture. An electric fence encloses the nearly 1,000 acres: at 220 volts, says Vickers, a local veterinarian and avid hunter, “it won’t kill them but it will make them wet their pants”. In 2006, Vickers and his wife Linda founded the Texas Border Volunteers, which now has some 300 recruits, who dress in fatigues and patrol private ranches in South Texas, using night-vision goggles and thermal imaging to...

Despite an overall drop in illegal immigration nationwide, there has been a huge spike in the number of undocumented immigrants found dead in the south Texas brush country this year, and a disturbing number of the illegals found dead and alive attempting to sneak into the U.S.in the past three months have been young people. 1200 WOAI news reports some who deal with illegal immigration blame the DREAM Act, and talk that young people in the United States illegally may receive legal residency or even a path to citizenship in a second Obama term. “Ever since this dialogue from Washington...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Nearly 10 people were sent to the hospital after a truckload of undocumented immigrants collided with an SUV on Monday in Brooks County. Emergency responders were called shortly after 11 a.m. to State Highway 285 about seven miles east of Falfurrias to find several people injured and a pickup on fire. The truck carrying about seven undocumented immigrants made a left turn onto Farm-to-Market Road 1329, colliding almost head-on with an SUV carrying a 72-year-old Hebbronville woman and a male relative, said Trooper Benjamin Ramirez, of the Department of Public Safety. Authorities also found several bundles of...

FALFURRIAS — Sergio Gaspar died a slow death in an area known as the desert of McAllen. Workers at Cage Ranch found the partially-decomposed body of the Ecuadorian immigrant Monday — a day before his 35th birthday. Half naked and already beginning to bloat, Gaspar was the 32nd victim of the violent heat and tough terrain in Brooks County this year. Deputies have counted at least 35 bodies found on the ranchlands this year. The ranchlands, which cover 60 to 70 percent of the nearly 950-square-mile county, are known to many illegal immigrants as the desert of McAllen — even...

BROOKS COUNTY - Two more illegal immigrants have been found dead in Brooks County, victims of the heat. There is a fire raging west of Falfurrias that has burned more than 30,000 acres. Firefighters have it mostly contained. Over the last few days, they have found three dead illegal immigrants, including two from Mexico, in the fire zone. They are conducting autopsies on the bodies. Authorities believe they died from the hot temperatures before the blaze came through the area. For the year, 21 illegal immigrants have died in the brush in Brooks County.

BROOKS COUNTY - Brooks County officials say the body found in the brush by crews battling a fire was a 27-year-old illegal immigrant. The man was found near county road 109. Authorities say they believe he died of heat exhaustion. The brushfire has been the largest this season in South Texas, burning 30,000 acres of ranchland so far. Officials say the fire is finally out. Valley fire crews have been helping put out the blaze.

U.S. Highway 281 Presentation >> Priority 1: Spend $75 million to build five overpasses in Falfurrias.>> Priority 2: A $13 million Ben Bolt overpass at Farm-to-Market Road 2508 is proposed to create a safer school zone and eliminate another traffic barrier.>> Priority 3: Dedicate anywhere from $40 million to $104 million to build tolled relief route around Premont or upgrade the existing route with tolled freeway lanes.>> Priority 4: A $50 million project in George West to build connectors to U.S. Highway 59 and Interstate 37.McALLEN -- Whether the route is eventually called Interstate 69 or the Trans-Texas Corridor, four...

Ideas for Trans-Texas Corridor-69 are slowly but surely rolling right along. The concept, which was known as Interstate Highway 69 until 2002, has been around for more than a decade, but Gaby Garcia, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Transportation's turnpike division, said it's getting closer to becoming a reality. "What we're looking at now is taking all the comments we've received and identifying a narrowed study area," Garcia said. "That's where we get a specific area where people can say, 'How would this affect my property?' " Right now, she said, the projected path for the corridor cuts a...

Brooks County sheriff says an unusually high number of bodies found FALFURRIAS - Brooks County Sheriff Balde Lozano has seen a surge in the number of illegal immigrants dying on ranches this month. Between June 8 and June 15, deputies have investigated the deaths of eight illegal immigrants in the county, he said. A ninth death was reported Thursday after human bones were found on a ranch 20 miles south of Falfurrias. "There's miles and miles where there is nothing. There is no water, just brush," Lozano said. "They need to understand it's a very dangerous trip." All of the...