Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents found a migrant’s lifeless body in the Rio Grande River earlier this month. Medical examiners and the Missing Migrant Project teamed up and identified the migrants as a Bangladeshi national who attempted to illegally enter the U.S. by crossing the river.
Laredo Station riverine agents found the body floating in the Rio Grande River border with Mexico on May 12, according to information obtained by Breitbart Texas from Laredo Sector officials. It appeared the man had failed in an attempt to illegally cross the border from Nuevo Laredo.
The agents recovered the body and turned the remains over to the Webb County Medical Examiner for the painstaking task of identification.
The medical examiner’s office worked with the Missing Migrant Project and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Border Protection Laboratories and Scientific Services for weeks and eventually identified the man as a Bangladeshi national.
More than 250 Bangladeshi nationals have illegally entered the U.S. this fiscal year by crossing the Rio Grande River in south Laredo with the assistance of cartel-connected human smugglers, officials previously stated.
The Bangladeshi nationals used a channel of cartel-connected human smugglers to make their way from their home country to the U.S. Their journey takes them from Bangladesh to South America, where they begin their northward trek to Mexico and then to the U.S., Border Patrol officials told Breitbart Texas in recent interviews. The smugglers are allegedly paid up to $27,000 for each Bangladeshi, officials said.
Bangladesh has been described by many as a hotbed of terrorist activity. In March 2017, the British government issued a travel advisory for Bangladesh to its citizens warning of potential terror attacks. The warning cited several incidents of terrorist activity in the months leading up to the travel advisory’s issuance.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza told Breitbart Texas in his capacity as president of the National Border Patrol Council 2455 that we do not know the intentions of these people who come to the U.S. from countries with ties to terrorism. “What we do know is that if the cartel-connected smugglers can bring people with good intentions across the border, they can also bring people with bad intentions.”
“We have been lucky to catch these groups but there is no telling how many other people from countries that sponsor terrorism could be utilizing that same pipeline,” Agent Garza stated.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, GAB, and Facebook.
(Disclosure: Breitbart Texas sponsored the Green Line podcast for the NBPC in an effort to provide a platform for agents to inform the public about the realities on the border and what Border Patrol agents face. Director Brandon Darby received an award from the Laredo chapter of the NBPC for his work in helping to defend and bring a voice to Border Patrol agents. Breitbart News assisted in covering funeral costs for a slain Border Patrol agent previously.)
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