By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

As Congress debates Department of Homeland Security funding, bipartisan support could be reached in one area: establishing federal responsibility for recovering dead bodies in border communities, a South Texas sheriff argues.

Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez, chairman of the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition and founding member of an Operation Lone Star Task Force, has already proposed a solution.

Martinez previously called on former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to establish federal responsibility to recover and identify deceased illegal border crossers. The plea fell on deaf ears, he told The Center Square in an exclusive interview. Martinez is hoping the Trump administration and Congress will make necessary regulatory and statutory changes to address an issue he’s been dealing with since the Obama administration.

“When illegal aliens are alive, they fall under the jurisdiction of Border Patrol, under CBP and DHS. When they’re deceased, responsibility falls on the county. This policy needs to be fixed,” Martinez said. “Responsibility should fall on the federal government, not local taxpayers.”

Martinez, a Democrat in an historically Democratic-majority county, has testified before Congress and the Texas legislature for years about border security strategies and the challenges facing local communities.

“Border security is a national security issue, a public health issue and a humanitarian issue,” he said. “No one should be dying in these remote areas thousands of miles from home but they are because of cartel smugglers.”

Currently, local taxpayers, mostly living in rural and poor counties, foot the bill to retrieve, transport, store, identify, bury and provide other services for the deceased.

From January 2009 through October 2014, during the Obama-era, the Brooks County Sheriff’s Department recovered 452 dead bodies on ranchland. Incurred costs surpassed $628,000, putting the county into debt. Martinez, who was chief deputy at the time, asked former Gov. Rick Perry for help. BCSD received a $300,000 grant, which helped but local taxpayers were still on the hook.

Martinez reached out to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for help. He filed a bill that was enacted under the first Trump administration, the Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act. It established a grant program for entities to transport, process, identify and report missing persons and unidentified remains, including those of illegal border crossers. Martinez secured funding for the county but costs and crime continued to escalate during the Biden-era border crisis.

By August 2021, Brooks County saw a 140% increase in dead bodies, a 130% increase in 911 calls, and more than 200% increase in rescues, The Center Square reported. That year, the BCSD recovered the second highest number of dead bodies, 119, in county history. The most was 129 in 2012, according to data exclusively obtained by The Center Square.

Through Gov. Greg Abbott’s OLS funding, Martinez secured millions of dollars, wiping out the previous debt. He brought in more than half a million dollars to the Falfurrias Police Department in the last two years, and millions more to purchase new vehicles, an upgraded EMS truck and upgrade the radio tower, as well as hire new EMS and Fire Department personnel and pay for BCSD overtime.

Martinez also created a mobile morgue since the county morgue, local funeral home and neighboring counties didn’t have capacity, staff or resources to handle the volume. He also began working with Texas State University’s Forensic Anthropology Center to identify remains. Their efforts were highlighted in an award-winning documentary. Prior to Martinez, dead bodies were buried in a local church cemetery without any identification. Martinez worked to have 165 bodies exhumed to identify. Multiple other forensic entities are also involved, including a K9 team from Jackson County, Mississippi. Martinez also secured a permanent morgue thanks to additional OLS funds.

The BCSD is also still working with consulates and federal partners to help identify remains and contact family members living thousands of miles away. His office has shelves full of binders containing information about each of the remains found in the county.

Brooks County, a rural and largely poor county spanning 943 square miles, is roughly 70 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border. It’s not on the border but because a major highway runs through it with one of the busiest Border Patrol checkpoints located on the northbound side, illegal border crosser crime is high.

To circumvent the checkpoint, illegal border crossers and human smugglers trespass on ranches on both sides of the highway, walking north, The Center Square has observed. Most of the year, temperatures reach well over 100 degrees. They cut ranchers’ fences, damage livestock water troughs, break into homes and hunting cabins, steal vehicles and commit other crimes, Martinez has found. Not all make it: they die from dehydration, starvation, snake bites or are killed by their smugglers, authorities say.

From 2009 to 2025, since Martinez’s has been with the BCSD, deputies working with Border Patrol, have recovered 997 bodies. The most in county history, 532, were recovered during the Obama administration. Under the first Trump administration, 182 bodies were recovered; under the Biden administration, 275 bodies were. Under the second Trump administration, the number dropped to eight last year, the lowest in recorded history. So far this year, they’ve found two.