A Maverick County, Texas, funeral home director is no longer accepting the bodies of migrants who died crossing the border, telling Breitbart News that his facility is beyond capacity.
The director of Memorial Funeral Home reported that he can no longer accept deceased migrants found in the Rio Grande or surrounding ranches, a Customs and Border Protection source told the news outlet's Texas division.
The funeral home reportedly conducted a mass burial of at least 10 unidentified deceased migrants Thursday morning.
The director told Breitbart that the change in policy took effect on Thursday.
The outlet reports that, while identification documents may be recovered from the remains of migrants, their authenticity can be questionable.
Border Patrol agents who specialize in macro photography are trained to gather fingerprints when available and domestic and international databases are searched for migrant identities.
In cases where remains are badly decomposed, the Missing Migrant Program searches missing persons reports and helps local coroners in collecting DNA samples from relatives.
It was not immediately clear how border officials and Maverick County officials will dispose of migrant bodies recovered in the area, with one county official telling Breitbart that they have few options.
"The remaining funeral home in the area lacks adequate facilities to handle the flow of deceased migrants," the county official said, speaking anonymously.
The county is currently exploring the feasibility of obtaining a refrigerated truck or identifying a funeral home outside of the immediate area that is capable of attending to the high numbers of deceased.
"Today's burial of 10 migrants did not do much to change the overall situation," the county official said.
The official attributed the situation to a recent uptick in the number of migrant deaths on ranches where they are being smuggled and in the Rio Grande.
In the first nine months of fiscal year 2022, there were more than 670 migrant deaths, Breitbart Texas reported last week. Of those deaths, 60% died of drowning or exposure, while another 10% were discovered but the cause was not determined.
Three more unidentified migrants who died while crossing the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass or shortly after were recovered on Wednesday, Border Patrol officials told the news outlet.
As migrant border crossings have increased, so have migrant deaths, with Border Patrol officials telling Breitbart that during some periods of increased activity the death toll is at least one migrant per day.
Del Rio sector border agents reportedly detained 50,000 migrants in July alone.
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