2,700 dead migrants

The 15-year-old migrant boy was suffering from heat exhaustion and grew agitated with smugglers on his treacherous journey across the US southern border — so they smothered him to death in front of his horrified mother and dumped his body in the West Texas desert.
Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland recalled investigating the June 2022 murder of the teen — one of 42 migrants his office has found the dead in the remote stretch of the US-Mexico border during the Biden-Harris administration.
The gut-wrenching tale isn’t an outlier: According to the Government Accountability Office, 2,700 of migrants have perished crossing into the US under President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was appointed “border czar” in 2021.
Cleveland believes the administration’s policies are to blame for the spike in deaths.
“The reason we have seen more deaths is because people believe the government is allowing people into the United States and therefore, they are taking more of a risk. Like other areas along the southwest border, we too have seen a significant increase in illegal aliens crossings, apprehensions and gotaways,” said Cleveland.
5 Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland assists fellow law enforcement officers in carrying a body on a stretcher along the border.
“With its open border policies, this administration is most definitely to blame for the increase in deaths. They have given those wanting to come to America the desire to risk their lives.”
Before serving as sheriff, Cleveland was a Border Patrol agent in the same area, where they usually only found one body a year.
Under the Trump administration, there were about 1,100 recorded migrant deaths across the southern border.
5 Aerial view of firefighters carrying the body of an alleged smuggler murdered near the US-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico, on June 15, 2022. AFP via Getty Images
Harris was tasked with addressing the “root causes of migration” three months into the Biden administration. What followed was the deadliest year on record at the southern border in the fiscal year 2022, when feds recorded 900 migrant deaths.
The United Nations International Office of Migration (IOM) labeled the southern border the “world’s deadliest migrant land route after the record.
5 Vice President Kamala Harris has been tagged as the “border czar” since she began her task in addressing the “root causes of migration” leading migrants to reach the US border. AFP via Getty Images
Since Harris took on the role of stopping migration, the sheriff says he’s been inundated with countless Facebook messages from loved ones searching for their family members they know crossed in his rmote county. Sometimes he finds them, many times he can’t.
“I don’t care if you’re a good guy or bad guy, legal or illegal. I don’t want to see anybody die. That’s still somebody’s loved one,” said Cleveland.
Cleveland said the June 2022 teen’s gruesome case sticks with him, even in spite of all he’s seen.
“I had been sheriff for just a month and we got a call of a deceased. We went out there and were told it’s likely gonna be a murder,” Cleveland told The Post.
After failing to bring the teenager to heel, the smugglers gave his mother a terrifying ultimatum: “either you do something about this, or we will,” Cleveland said.
The men forced the mother to knock her son out with a rock to calm him down, but when it didn’t work, they forced the group to dogpile on top of him. He died of asphyxiation.
5 The United Nations labeled the southern border the deadliest route for migrants globally in 2022, when deaths hit a new record. Omar Ornelas / USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The number of migrants who have died along the US-Mexico border is likely much higher than recorded since some bodies are never found in the remote stretches of unforgiving terrain, Border Patrol source said.
Sometimes all that’s left of the bodies are bones.
“I’ve encountered aliens in all stages of decomposing,” said a Border Patrol source. “Dehydration, exposure and exhaustion are the main killers.”
5 Two Turkish men fell from the border wall in Imperial Beach, CA, and told The Post they broke their legs. James Breeden for the New York Post
“June and July were bad, we were finding one to two a week,” the source added.
Another source recalled many lost to drownings in the rapids of the Rio Grande River.
“People get swept under or away,” said the source.
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.