美国国家公共电台 NPR--Migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a record high, in part due to drownings

Migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a record high, in part due to drownings

Transcript¹

The river that divides Texas and Mexico is known on the U.S. side as the Rio Grande. On the other side, it has a different name: El Río Bravo, "the angry river" or "the fierce river."

"It seems like it's a slow moving river, but it's fairly swift. It is very deceptive², very dangerous," says Manuel Mello, the fire chief in Eagle Pass, a small city in South Texas that's become one of the busiest crossing spots on the entire border.

The fire department helps recover the bodies of migrants who drowned trying to cross. Mello says the department used to get one or two calls a month. Now it gets dozens.

"It's basically a drowning a day that you're seeing," Mello says.

This has been the deadliest year ever for migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. More than 800 migrants have died border-wide in the fiscal³ year that ends this week, according to internal government figures shared by a senior Border Patrol official.

Drownings are part of the reason why. Hundreds more have perished from extreme heat in remote borderlands, or in the backs of tractor-trailers.

A dramatic rescue in the angry river

Eagle Pass has emerged as one of the more dangerous crossing points on the border — especially after heavy rains, when the river is high. Earlier this month, nine migrants were recovered from the river near Eagle Pass on a single day.

NPR watched as several families with young children waded⁴ out into the water on the Mexico side, only to turn back when it got too deep.

Venezuelan migrant Anderson Infante saw the river's power firsthand.

"We all just jumped into the river without knowing how deep it was, and how strong the currents were," Infante says in Spanish.

Infante crossed the river a few weeks ago near Del Rio, Texas with a group of migrants. He had almost made it to the Texas side, he says, when he heard screams coming from the water.

"I hear a young woman yelling, 'help, help, I'm drowning,' " he says. "But everybody kept going, no one was helping⁵ her."

Luckily for her, Infante had worked as a lifeguard back in Venezuela. He says his training kicked in, and he dived back into the river to help.

"I pulled her out of the water and I told her to breathe and told her to calm herself down, otherwise she'd drown," he says.

Authorities in South Texas struggle to keep pace with deaths

First responders and law enforcement officials in South Texas say they're struggling to keep up with the pace of migrant fatalities⁶.

Maverick⁷ County, which includes Eagle Pass, has no medical examiner. So the remains⁸ of migrants have to be stored at a local funeral home until they can be transported to neighboring Webb County.

Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber says the funeral director recently called to ask if the sheriff had a place to store bodies.

"Right now, they're overwhelmed," Schmerber says. "No, we didn't put anybody here. But I know that he has a problem with the number of people that are dying, and he doesn't have space."

It's the second year in a row that migrant deaths near the border have climbed sharply. More than 560 migrants died in FY 2021, according to internal government figures, setting the previous record for a single year.

Immigration authorities say the criminal organizations that smuggle¹⁰ migrants over the border are largely to blame.

"Smuggling¹¹ organizations are abandoning migrants in remote and dangerous areas, leading to a rise in the number of rescues but also tragically¹² a rise in the number of deaths," a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement, noting that the number of rescues performed by CBP officers and agents at the border climbed to more than 20,000 this year.

Immigration hardliners have not been shy about blaming the growing number of fatalities on President Biden.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, says the Biden administration is encouraging more migrants to try the dangerous crossing by lifting some of former President Trump's harshest border policies. Abbott was particularly critical at a press conference in late June, when more than 50 migrants died after being trapped in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio.

"It is the deadliest migrant smuggling incident on U.S. soil. And it's on President Biden's watch," Abbott said.

But immigrant advocates say it's not fair to blame the rise in migrant deaths on the current president alone.

"The border conditions are incredibly inhospitable, and they have been since the late '90s," says Robin¹³ Reineke, a professor of anthropology¹⁴ at the University of Arizona. Reineke is also the co-founder of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights in Tucson, a nonprofit organization that helps the families of migrants who've died or gone missing near the border.

For decades, Reineke says U.S. administrations of both parties have embraced the strategy known as "prevention through deterrence¹⁵" by making it harder to cross in safer spots.

"The basic idea behind prevention through deterrence is that once people would see how difficult and dangerous it was to cross, that they wouldn't try," she says. "They did try, and they died in the thousands."

Reineke says it's time to rethink that strategy, and create more legal pathways for migration⁹.

"It isn't just a matter of strategy anymore." she says. "It's a matter of human life and the costs, socially and morally to an entire generation of border residents, and families of those who died crossing."

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 deceptive   

adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• His appearance was deceptive.他的外表带有欺骗性。
• The storyline is deceptively simple.故事情节看似简单，其实不然。

3 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

4 waded   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She tucked up her skirt and waded into the river. 她撩起裙子蹚水走进河里。
• He waded into the water to push the boat out. 他蹚进水里把船推出来。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 fatalities   

n.恶性事故( fatality的名词复数 )；死亡；致命性；命运

参考例句：

• Several people were injured, but there were no fatalities. 有几个人受伤，但没有人死亡。
• The accident resulted in fatalities. 那宗意外道致多人死亡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 maverick   

adj.特立独行的；不遵守传统的；n.持异议者，自行其是者

参考例句：

• He's a maverick.He has his own way of thinking about things.他是个特异独行的人。对事情有自己的看法。
• You're a maverick and you'll try anything.你是个爱自行其是的人，样样事情都要尝试一下。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

10 smuggle   

vt.私运；vi.走私

参考例句：

• Friends managed to smuggle him secretly out of the country.朋友们想方设法将他秘密送出国了。
• She has managed to smuggle out the antiques without getting caught.她成功将古董走私出境，没有被逮捕。

11 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。

12 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

13 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

14 anthropology   

n.人类学

参考例句：

• I believe he has started reading up anthropology.我相信他已开始深入研究人类学。
• Social anthropology is centrally concerned with the diversity of culture.社会人类学主要关于文化多样性。

15 deterrence   

威慑，制止； 制止物，制止因素； 挽留的事物； 核威慑

参考例句：

• An extreme school of "disarmers" pronounced stable deterrence was a dangerous deception. “裁军论者”中的极端派声称，稳定的威摄是一种危险的骗局。
• Escalation is thus an aspect of deterrence and of crisis management. 因此逐步升级是威慑和危机处理的一个方面。