{"id":655257,"date":"2018-12-15T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=655257"},"modified":"2018-12-15T15:39:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-15T22:39:12","slug":"border-area-officials-could-get-a-funding-boost-to-help-id-human-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/12\/border-area-officials-could-get-a-funding-boost-to-help-id-human-remains\/","title":{"rendered":"Border-area officials could get a funding boost to help ID human remains"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Border

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

A scene from the U.S.\/Mexico border. In the foreground, behind a barbed-wire fence, U.S. Border Patrol agents speak with each other in El Paso, Texas. Across the Rio Grande, in the background, is Cuidad Ju\u00e1rez, Mexico.<\/p><\/div>\n

After nearly a decade as Brooks County\u2019s top lawman, there are two statistics that still stand out to Sheriff Urbino \u201cBenny\u201d Martinez: 129 and 670,000.<\/p>\n

The first is the number of human remains discovered in the South Texas county in 2012, when a record number of undocumented immigrants perished in the brutal Texas terrain while trying to avoid contact with federal immigration officials. The second is the amount in dollars his department spent from 2009 to 2012 to transport, identify and process human remains.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order for things to get done correctly, there is a lot of funding involved,\u201d he said of the costs that come with the grisly and heartbreaking task of finding bodies in his county, which is home to one of the state’s busiest Border Patrol checkpoints, straddling U.S. 281 near Falfurrias.<\/p>\n