Immigration Reform News 2013: Texas County Plagued By Immigrant Deaths, GOP Pushes Reform
Brooks County, Texas has become a new prime destination for immigrants looking to sneak into the United States, but it's also becoming deadly in the process.
The small Texas county has been increasingly overwhelmed by a climbing death toll of immigrants who die there as they try to take the long way around a border control checkpoint. 129 bodies were found last year - second only to Pima County, Ariz. -- and things only got more ugly as the county struggled to afford the necessary costs to handle each case. More than 70 have already been found this year. However, a new rule says that all bodies suspected of being immigrants are required to be sent nearly 100 miles to undergo autopsies.
Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, coordinator of the Binational Migration Institute at the University of Arizona, said to the Associated Press that all counties differ financially.
"There are some counties that have the economic wherewithal to take on these issues, and there are other counties that just don't have any money, so that puts them into a real bad bind,"
Immigration issues have taken a backseat in the United States as the nation has dealt with the issues in Syria. Although many politicians have recently said immigration deals would take even longer, republicans are now saying that they expect there to be progress by the end of the year.
Republican Bob Goodlatte has been perhaps the most outspoken advocate of pushing immigration to the front, and the message has gotten across to his collaegues.
"Indications from Representative Goodlatte and others are that they want to move on immigration, that doing nothing is not an option," said Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "I am of the belief, despite reports that immigration reform is dead, that it's very much alive."