McALLEN, TEXAS (Border Report) — Representing migrants who died while trying to cross the border last year, 600 wooden crosses covered a field for a month in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Many of the crosses had blue or pink marks indicating the young boys and girls who died, organizers with the Border Vigil, a human rights program by the Eagle Pass Border Coalition, told Border Report on Monday.
The memorial of crosses were set up on Dec. 14 in a field at Shelby Park — a park that that’s been partially closed to the public because it is the staging point for Operation Lone Star, Texas’ border security initiative in Eagle Pass.
Volunteers removed the crosses on Saturday.
“One of the reasons that we do it all at once and then take it down, is to show this is what happened this year,” coalition co-founder Amerika Garcia-Grewal said.
This is the second year that the organization has put up the crosses at Shelby Park.
“It was an emotional and moving experience walking among the 600 crosses representing people who died either trying to swim the river,” said Mike Garcia, co-founder of the Border Vigil. “To understand that each one of those crosses represented the loss of someone’s life. The pink tipped crosses were for children, for girls and the blue tipped ones were for boys and there was a lot of them there. It’s knowing what all that’s about and the family still doesn’t know for some of them. What happened to them? Where did they end up? It really made you think.”
“It was sad to see so many people died reaching for the American dream,” said Ana Guardiola, director of Ballet Folklórico De Las Águilas, which performed at the ceremony to the song “La Llorona.”
At the end of the song, community members and clergy joined the dancers and walked among the crosses for a moment of silent contemplation and to reflect on the significance of the memorial, organizers told Border Report.
“We pray that God will comfort the families that have lost a loved one who was only looking for a safer and better life for their families,” Pastor Javier Leyva told participants.
“We must never forget the lives lost and the ongoing struggles faced by those at our southern border,” said Juanita Martinez of Eagle Pass.
In Fiscal Year 2022 there were 895 deaths of migrants on the Southwest border. That is the last data available, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
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