() People crisscrossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a way of life in El Paso, Texas, but data compiled by an immigrant advocacy group shows that the region is the deadliest for migrants attempting to illegally enter the United States.

The El Paso Sector reported 196 migrant deaths in 2024  – a jump from 143 a year earlier, according to a report issued by the Hope Border Institute. The El Paso region includes counties in Texas and New Mexico and is known for its dangerous terrain and cavernous open desert. But El Paso County Commissioner David Stout insists that politics – not Mother Nature – is ultimately responsible for migrants dying.

 Stout, a Democrat, told fellow commissioners this week that the United States is “continuously and knowingly killing” immigrants rather than providing meaningful pathways to legal entry into the country. Stout told he doesn’t make that claim lightly but says that the migrant death toll can no longer be ignored.

“Crossing the border without papers or in between a port of entry should not mean a death sentence,” Stout told .

The deadliest migration route

At least 5,045 deaths or disappearances have been reported among immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border since 2014, according to a resolution passed by the El Paso County Commissioners this week.

Most deaths were caused by heat exposure or dehydration, along with wall falls, drownings and other injuries. The report said that 83% of fatalities in the El Paso Sector resulted from drownings, pedestrian motor vehicle accidents or wall falls, the data, which was compiled by The International Organization for Migration. Regardless of how migrants were killed, however, Stout insists that people and policies that are meant to serve as deterrents are more responsible than conditions experienced by migrants.

In many cases, the death toll nearly half of which involved women exceeded the deaths reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, sometimes by two or four times, the report said.

Between 2018 and 2023, 24 children died in the El Paso Sector, the report said, with 17 of those deaths taking place within El Paso County. In addition, 1,100 people have been treated for injuries they sustained after falling from border walls between 2019 and 2023.

The number of migrant deaths in the sector surpassed 100 for the first time in 2023. Stout said the increases in fatalities occurred because current immigration policies force migrants to cross into the country in what Stout calls “some of the most unforgiving areas”.

Stout described the region as a place where summer temperatures hover between 100 and 115 degrees and where currents in the Rio Grande River are capable of pulling people under.

The border blame game

Stout accuses Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of placing buoys in the middle of the river to make crossing even more dangerous and adding to the challenge that migrants face. He also blames the record number of encounters between immigrants and federal border officials on ineffective policies that have forced migrants to seek their own way into the country which often take place between designated ports of entry along the border.

“This guy calls himself a Christian, people in the state of Texas call themselves Christians and they call themselves pro-life, but they’re here literally trying to kill migrants to keep them from crossing the border,” Stout said.

Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesman, told this week that the death of migrants in El Paso is not on the governor, but instead, on the “unsustainable chaos the federal government has unleashed on the border.”

He confirmed that Abbott had floating marine barriers put into the water to deter migrants from using the river as a crossing. However, he said those floating barriers were placed in the Del Rio Sector and not the El Paso region. He said that the barriers have helped, but still blames the Biden administration for the number of migrants dying.

“Their reckless open border policies encourage migrants to make the dangerous and illegal trek across the border, ultimately taking the lives of migrants,” Mahaleris said.

Emails sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety and CBP, both of which patrol the border, were not immediately returned.

The Hope Border Institute found that there is a greater need for systematic identification and documentation of border deaths and that such processes are “woefully absent” in El Paso County. In unanimously passing a non-binding resolution this week, El Paso County officials said more attention needs to be paid to the number of migrant deaths.

 Rev. Arturo Bañuelas, chair emeritus of the Hope Border Institute’s board of directors, said more people are dying trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border nowadays than those who die in natural disasters such as hurricanes and fires.

“As people of faith and people of goodwill, we cannot turn away,” Bañuelas said at this week’s commissioner meeting. “To ignore this crisis is to deny the humanity and dignity of those who have died.“

Stout said that migrant deaths are preventable through immigration reform, which provides legal processes for immigrants to enter the country and legally be authorized to work in a timely fashion. He says the vast majority of migrants would take advantage of legal entry, which would free up border officials to go after migrants with criminal convictions as “border czar” Tom Homan has suggested will be the focus of President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.

Stout realizes that the road to legal pathways won’t get easier next week when Trump takes office. But Stout said that even under previous Democratic leadership in the White House between Barack Obama and Joe Biden, finding comprehensive reform has been “impossible” as both presidents have encountered resistance from Congress in passing immigration measures.

But he hopes that given the number of people who have died trying to enter the country, he hopes that bringing attention to the record numbers will help spark change and awareness.

“The system is broken and (migrant deaths) are one of the saddest results of that system and its problems,” Stout told , adding. “These are human beings who are losing their lives.”