‘This Was Horrific To See’

A Fox News Channel crew captured harrowing video Sunday of a migrant attempting to cross from Mexico into the United States only to drown in the Rio Grande. In video broadcast on the network Monday, the man is seen struggling to stay afloat in the strong current as a second man—who was able to grab onto a cement pillar—screamed for help. Within seconds, the first man sinks underwater and does not resurface.

“This was horrific to see,” Fox News correspondent Bryan Llenas said as he shared the graphic video on FNC’s America’s Newsroom newscast. “This was witnessed by dozens of people, including Mexican and U.S. authorities who were on scene…it was traumatic to witness.”

Llenas said on the Texas side of the river, members of the National Guard were present with rescue boats and life preservers, but they did nothing to try and keep the man from drowning. “A National Guardsman told me they were ordered not to perform any more water rescues in the Rio Grande river” after the death last month of a Texas National Guard soldier who drowned trying to save two migrants.

Llenas shouted to the second man, urging him not to try and cross the river, and telling him help was on the way. The man told Llenas he and his friend has left Nicaragua in December, bound for the United States. Mexican authorities later rescued the surviving man from the river and recovered the body of his friend.

Fox News reported that they had asked representatives of the Texas Military Department and the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about whether an order had been given halting water rescues, but had not received an answer.