Single Automobile Accident Kills Undocumented Migrant Woman and Injures Four Other Migrants near Eagle Pass, Texas
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2022
The Eagle Pass Fire Department Chief Manuel Mello reported a single automobile accident on U. S. Highway 277 North about seven miles north of the City of Eagle Pass, Maverick County, Texas that lost control and struck a ranch fence along the highway where six undocumented migrants were walking, killing one woman and injuring four other migrants while one saved himself from any injuries on Saturday, September 3, 2022, at approximately 10:50 p.m.
The Eagle Pass Fire Department Emergency Medical Service ambulances were dispatched to the scene of the accident to attend the injured persons and transport them to the Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center Emergency Room in Eagle Pass, Texas. One woman was found deceased at the scene of the accident while four other migrants were transported for medical treatment and another did not sustain any injuries.
The Maverick County Sheriff’s Department and Texas Department of Public Safety officers were summoned to the scene of the accident to investigate the tragic incident. The accident is under investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
One of the four injured migrants is a minor child that was traveling with the group of six that included men, women, and at least one child.
A Maverick County Justice of the Peace was summoned to the scene of the tragic accident site to pronounce one female migrant person deceased. According to sources, the deceased woman was identified as Vilma Yessenia Gonzalez Oliva, age 20, and the minor child was in critical condition at the hospital.
This new fatal single automobile accident comes on the heels of Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico authorities retrieving the bodies of nine undocumented migrants who drowned in the Rio Grande one day earlier on Friday, September 2, 2022, as well as rescuing another 37 migrants from a group of migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande after recent thunderstorms in Northern Mexico, West Texas and South Central Texas have caused the river level to swell and carry strong, fast currents that swept the migrants while crossing.
Recently, on Thursday, August 25, 2022, U. S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U. S. Border Patrol Chief Raul L. Ortiz visited Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas and received a personal tour of the current immigration dilemma in the Del Rio Sector of the U. S. Border Patrol, which has become in recent months the epic center of increased crossings by migrants seeking asylum, refugee, or pursuit of the American Dream to work and earn a living in the United States.
