Border Patrol Ramps Up Efforts to Prevent Migrant Deaths From Heat

The Border Patrol has ramped up operations to target human smugglers in an effort to curb heat-related deaths to migrants ahead of the oppressive south Texas summer, Breitbart reports.

The Border Patrol is targeting big rigs and stash houses that are popular with human smugglers moving migrants across the border. Raids on stash houses are up 67 percent and enforcement of tractor-trailers is up 33 percent over last year Breitbart reports.

Temps are expected to hit 100 next week along the Rio Grande.

"The Rio Grande Valley Sector has recorded 57 deaths for fiscal year 2018, and the summer months are looming," RGV sector chief Manuel Padilla Jr. told Breitbart in a statement. "The victims in human smuggling will always be the immigrants; smugglers see them as a commodity."

The raids are also leading to more arrests, with 227 illegals nabbed in a raid earlier this month, Breitbart reported.

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