EDINBURG — Five years after it was proposed on the House floor, U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act was signed into law near midnight on Dec. 31, 2020. It was one of the last acts of former President Donald Trump during his term.

Delcia Lopez | [email protected]
Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez flanks Congressman Vicente Gonzalez and Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra during a news conference at the county jail in Edinburg on Monday.

The law will channel federal funds toward financing the identification process of migrants who die while traveling to the U.S., a unique responsibility of law enforcement agencies along the border.

Gonzalez, D-McAllen, first proposed the bill during his initial term in office in 2016, but it didn’t pass through the House floor. This time around, the bill was signed into law with the support of U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, Sen. John Cornyn and now Vice President Kamala Harris.

“In one of the most divisive times in American political history, we were able to pass this bill,” Gonzalez said during a news conference inside the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office auditorium Monday morning.

Along with federal funding for identification investigations of migrants found dead at the border, the law will provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection with additional resources for rescue efforts, and expand eligibility grants for forensic laboratories and medical examination centers.

Additionally, the law will fund the hiring of more DNA case analysts and technicians, forensic anthropologists and fingerprint examiners.

“This is a very important bill for South Texas and regions across the border, and joining rural counties from California to Texas,” Gonzalez said. “We have lost thousands of migrants in open lands, ranch lands, and very dangerous desert zones and the cost of dealing with this falls on state and local governments, local rural counties.”

For every unidentified migrant found dead in South Texas, the cost of the identification process — which includes DNA sampling, transportation and proper disposal services — can range between $1,500 and $4,000 for local law enforcement agencies.

Identifying migrants found dead along the border is a state law.

“These are funds that we have to expend from county taxpayers as a result of a federal issue,” Hidalgo County Sheriff J. E. “Eddie” Guerra said. “And because of our geographic location, it falls upon us. …(We now have) the help of the federal government taking that issue and burden away from us.”

Delcia Lopez | [email protected]
Students from Texas State and Indianapolis University Anthropology excavate a grave site where human remains were found from unidentified immigrants at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Brooks County on Jan. 5, 2017.

Guerra said in 2017, the sheriff’s department investigated 29 migrant deaths, while in the past two years combined, they found fewer than 20 bodies.

Much of the work is in rural areas such as Brooks County, where at one point Sheriff Benny Martinez said two to three bodies were being found a week.

The county was discovering the most bodies between the years 2009 and 2012, in which Martinez said the office incurred a tab of about $680,700. Because of the high debt the office was racking up, he said the entire office took a pay cut while some were laid off.

He said there has been a decrease in the number of deaths found at the border. Last year, the county investigated around 35 unidentified people, and four bodies have been found one month into 2021.

“Probably this is one of the best bills to come out of Washington in many years, where they actually come together — it’s a good thing,” Martinez said.

“It got done. It was done on the last minute of the last day to get it signed, but we will take it.”

However, Martinez said the law is just a Band-Aid over a larger problem, saying it is not fixed “until you create a good solid immigration reform to where they don’t have to cross the river and come across the port of entry.”

Gonzalez said though the law is a step toward helping local agencies identify dead migrants, efforts could be made to address the reasons they are seeking asylum in the first place.

“The root of this problem is the poverty and violence in those three Central American countries, and I think that if we allocate resources in those counties, we could bring down violence and bolster their economy,” Gonzalez said.

“Until we do that, we are going to deal with this.”