A public memorial built along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass honors the lives of more than 700 migrants who have died on the border in 2023.
Students, clergy, and local residents joined The Eagle Pass Border Coalition to set up wooden crosses over half an acre at the city's Shelby Park, each representing a person who perished in their attempt to cross into the United States in search of a better life.
Many of the crosses are painted pink or baby blue in memory of the children who have died on the border this year.
"We all have an immigration story to tell and we want people to remember that these are lives. These are families," said Amerika Garcia-Grewal, an organizer with the Eagle Pass Border Coalition.
Garcia-Grewal said her town of 30,000 that has become a crossing hot spot for migrants does not have the resources to solve the country's immigration problems.
Nevertheless, they came together to send a message to the world about the humanity of the immigration issue.
"These are people just trying to survive in a really changing world. And that's something that we can tell just living here, being who we are," she told TPR.
The memorial at Shelby Park was a chance to welcome the community back to the park that was once the epicenter of Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star program that has militarized the area with barbed wire, spiked buoys, and thousands of National Guard and DPS troopers.
Now that the park is open to the public again, organizers now hope the memorial at the park can serve as a space of healing for a community regularly witnessing trauma.
"When I have canoed down the river, I've seen baby bottles and I see parents holding on tightly to their children and I see really scared faces. I hear people who are terrified of what they are doing when they cross the river," Garcia-Grewal said. "For them to be so afraid and still face the concertina wire and still face the soldiers who are shouting at them, how much worse must it be that they are fleeing?"
Garcia-Grewal said she hopes media and politicians who descend on her town in the coming days during another influx in migration visit the memorial, which will be on display until Jan. 13.
