ROMA, TX – This week, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) announced that on March 16, a group of Texas Rangers rescued a 6-month-old girl from the Rio Grande River.
The baby had just been tossed into the river by a human smugglers, only minutes after they severely beat the girl's mother, according to the DPS.
The baby's mother suffered a broken leg in the attack, and was also thrown in the river. The two were spotted by by a Ranger, who pulled them both from the water.
Both mother and baby were in a group of about 200 being smuggled across the border. They were crossing the river in a raft with about five or six others.
"The mother and the child were pushed out of the raft by the smuggler, into the river, and they were expected to swim across...She's trying to save her baby. She's holding her in one hand. By the time she made it to the banks, she's clutching to a tree branch, trying to pull themselves up," stated Texas Ranger Lt. Olivarez.
DPS has not specified for which drug cartel the smugglers worked.
The DPS released the following statement on the team who rescued the girl from drowning:
This specialized group is a highly trained tactical team whose primary responsibility is to carry out specific missions, usually along the Texas-Mexico border region or wherever needed. The team is designed to conduct both overt and extended covert operations in remote areas where conventional law enforcement cannot operate. The teams focus is to gather intelligence, conduct interdiction, and disruption of criminal activity usually associated with drug cartels.
The harrowing incident brings to light the dangers the migrants face while making their illegal journey into this country, and the brutality regularly dished-out by the human smugglers.
The drug cartels took over the human smuggling business several years ago, and has become yet another lucrative racket for the, now, transnational criminal organizations.
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