Rural South Texas county flooded with dead bodies of migrants, most from Central America

Dead bodies, or often just human remains, are being discovered at an alarming rate in a South Texas county 70 miles north of the Mexican border, and the majority of the dead are not illegal aliens from Mexico, but Central America, reports Nick Miroff for The Washington Post. Last year 129 bodies, assumed to be migrants illegally crossing the border, were found in rural Brooks County. Deaths are on pace to more than double this year.

We reported last week that a government crackdown to stop people from crossing the border through cities or in vehicles has led to an increase of foot traffic in rural areas. Brooks County is in the Rio Grande Valley, which in 2012 had the highest number of illegal alien apprehensions of anywhere in the country at more than 49,000, nearly three times as many as the next highest area, Tuscon, which had 17,000.

The journey from Central America to the U.S. begins via freight trains through Mexico, Miroff writes. The migrants are then smuggled across the Rio Grande to safe houses in Texas. From there "they hike 20 to 30 miles through sand, thorns and withering heat, and when they get lost or their guides leave them, they collapse from thirst and exposure." (Read more)

The Post created this graphic with information from the U.S. Border Patrol and the Brooks County Sheriff's Office.