Immigration News: Shocking Mass Graves Uncovered in Texas Cemetery
Several mass graves have been discovered in a South Texas cemetery over the past two weeks. Remains have been found in body bags, trash bags, shopping bags -- or no bags.
The bodies belong to migrants who died crossing the desert into the United States. Sacred Heart Burial Park in Brooks County is paid by the county to handle the bodies of deceased immigrants in the area and is believed to be responsible for the graves, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
"These people deserve a proper investigation and a proper burial," Texas Sen. Juan Hinojosa, a Democrat, told Reuters. The senator said he and the local district attorney would meet this week to request an inquiry by the Texas Rangers.
Local authorities also are investigating the burials, but they do not expect to file charges. A funeral home official would not confirm that the company was responsible for the burials, Brooks County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Benny Martinez said.
"We have always been under budget constraints," he said. "Maybe there was no money to facilitate burying the bodies."
Spokeswoman Jessica McDunn for Service Corporation International, which owns the funeral home, stated in an email to the Caller-Times, "No matter if this is one of our client families we serve on a traditional basis or a migrant family's loved one we are serving and we do not have identification of the loved one, it is our policy to treat the decedent with care, to treat them just like we would treat anyone else."
McDunn told the newspaper that the funeral home has records pertaining to the burials, but that doesn't mean the funeral home was responsible, and the funeral home would not give the Caller-Times access to the records.
Anthropologists have exhumed bodies from over 50 plots. The total number of bodies buried is unclear because the remains have been mixed together.
"I was pretty upset at the end, because this isn't the way to be interred," Baylor University anthropologist Lori Baker said. "The idea that all along the border there are these people buried anonymously is horrible. This isn't even the worst we've seen, and it has to stop."
The anthropologists are students and professors from Baylor University and the University of Indianapolis and are part of the Reuniting Families project, a multiyear effort to identify the bodies of hundred of undocumented immigrants who have died crossing the Texas-Mexico border over the past few years.
Sheriff Martinez said the funeral home charges $450 to handle each body. According to County Judge Raul Ramirez, the funeral home has been handling such remains for the past 16 years.
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