Much of the Biden administration’s border response in recent months has centered on caring for the unaccompanied minors who have arrived in record numbers, along with parents traveling with children. Those groups do not typically attempt to evade capture, and they usually seek out U.S. agents after crossing the border to request humanitarian protection.

Adult migrants continue to be the largest share of border crossers, however, and smuggling guides often send them through rugged desert and mountain areas where deaths from exposure rise with extreme heat. U.S. agents took more than 111,000 single adult migrants into custody in April, the highest total in more than a decade, and the number increased again in May, according to preliminary enforcement data.

“It’s going to be a brutal summer,” said Don White, a sheriff’s deputy in rural Brooks County, Tex., where hundreds of migrantshave died over the past decade attempting to skirt a Border Patrol highway checkpoint by walking miles through the brush.

White said the county has recovered 34 bodies and human remains this year on the vast cattle ranches where migrants often become lost and dehydrated in 100-degree heat and harsh terrain. “I’ve never seen so many people coming through,” White said. “It’s just crazy right now.”….

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