Posted on 08/11/2009 9:46:11 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
The county is looking at cheaper ways to deal with the recent spike in paying for indigent burials.
According to officials they don't have the necessary resources to bury the bodies.
"According to medical examiner they have seen an increase in deaths in illegal crossings. They have seen drowning and even heat exhaustion but the county says they have no space to bury these bodies."
"Our department is in charge mandate by the state of Texas to burry all indigent, paupers and John Does and we've ran out of money."
Since January the medical examiners office has seen 40 immigrants who have died trying to cross the border. As a result more bodies are unclaimed, having to be stored in coolers for a long period of time.
"Typically I try to store the indigent for 30 to 60 days. We try to exhaust all means of trying to identify them and returning them to their families,” but that cost money and space, both of which the county is running out of.
The medical examiner says they are exhausting the indigent services more than ever.
" There's been in our offices for many weeks at a time. Because families can't come up with the money for their burials."
The law states that all of them need to be buried but that costs 21 hundred dollars per body, making the county look for other less expensive ways like cremation.
"John Does by the state of Texas cannot be cremated so we can only do indigent. It doesn’t cover the whole problem but it does to some degree."
According to indigent health care services cremation could save the county 35 thousand dollars per year, and the cost to cremate a body is a lot cheaper between eight to 15 hundred dollars.
"It affects the medical examiner officers, indigent services department and tax payers of Webb County who ultimately pay the bill for this."
Today the Indigent Services Department asked commissioners to consider the option of using cremation to save money.
The court will form a committee to look into the issue.
The commissioners also approved 55-thousand dollars for the costs of burials for the rest of the year.
That was my gut reaction, and if they're MS13 or other ne'er do wells, so be it. Having said that, if I were living in some central American hell-hole, I'd be roughing my way north for a better life for me and my family, and in that regard, some of these folks are just like us: victims of the Federal Government's complacency and lax enforcement on the border.
At least a few of these people were willing to risk their lives in the hopes of securing the same kind of freedom, liberty and opportunity most of us merely pay lip service to.
I'm not condoning illegal immigration...and anyone who's ever read any other post I've made on the subject would clearly understand that...I'm just saying I can't blame them for trying to come to the US, but our government made it too tempting to cross the border, and too easy to die in the desert.
Los dos Laredos ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
A catapult or a trebuchet to send them back across the Rio Grande would be a cheap way to dispose of the dead illegals if their families won’t accept their bodies.
Exactly. Nature has many species that have literally evolved to be the "cleanup crew." Let them have at it.
Why aren’t they cremating them? That seems a no-brainer.
Red rover, red rover, we’re sending dead illegals back over! Pack ‘em in body bags and dry ice, send ‘em back and then bill Mexico for all costs involved and be sure to add the “pain in the fanny” tax.
I love your thinking!
Texas needs to change its law requiring burial of John Does. If they are worried about identification, they could take DNA samples before cremation. If they know who they are and the families cannot assume responsibility, they should be cremated without further ado. This is a tragic situation, but it is a result of illegal behavior. They taxpayer cannot be expected to bankroll the mistakes of so many illegals.
It worked during the London plague and Mozart didn't complain when he was buried that way.
Yes, for that added spicy flavor!
Excellent - solve two problems at once.
I bet the feral hogs down there will solve the problem if left to their own devices. I used to hunt ‘em and they ran several hundred pounds and They’ll eat most anything.
Course you wouldn’t want them to get used to it. They are too damn smart. It could get to be a habit and next thing ya know, they’d be huntin’ for human critters alive on the hoof.
Sweeney Todd had a good solution.
Turn them into Meat Pies.
Depending on how far they are from the actual border itself, I’m thinking “trebuchet.”
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