Mother from Haiti apprehended this week told agents her daughter had been lost to the currents as they crossed

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

US border patrol divers are searching for a two-year-old girl who was swept away in the Rio Grande on the US-Mexico border as she was crossing into Texas with her mother.

The treacherous river that winds along the border between Texas and Mexico may have claimed yet another victim, a week after pictures of a father and his tiny daughter who drowned in the same waters shocked the world.

How a congressional trip highlighted migrants' detention misery Read more

Government divers on Wednesday were searching for the latest possible casualty, after a mother from the Caribbean nation of Haiti was apprehended by border patrol on the US side of the border this week and told agents her daughter had been lost to the powerful river currents as they crossed together near the Texas town of Del Rio.

The news of more hardship for migrants crossing unlawfully into the US in desperation, particularly amid the crackdown on entry and on seeking asylum by the Trump administration, came on the day the government’s own watchdog decried squalid and overcrowded conditions in border patrol stations for detained adults and children.

Mexico’s government, citing unpublished US data, on Wednesday said migrant arrests at the border fell 30% in June from the previous month after it launched a migration restriction policy as part of a deal with the US to avoid possible trade tariffs.

The Mexican government said it was now bussing home dozens of Central American migrants from the city of Juárez, on the border with Texas, who were forced to wait in Mexico for their asylum claims to be processed under a Trump administration policy known as “Remain in Mexico”.

After migrant arrests reached a 13-year monthly high in May, immigration has arguably become the biggest issue for Trump and Democratic hopefuls vying for the 2020 presidential election.

The Democratic US senator Cory Booker would “virtually eliminate immigration detention” if he wins the White House, his election campaign team said on Tuesday.

Presidential 2020 hopeful Julián Castro last week proposed decriminalizing border crossings as a step toward freeing up federal resources and eliminating thousands of cases clogging criminal courts – an initiative favored by fellow candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Lawmakers visiting Texas border patrol stations earlier this week condemned conditions the government is keeping migrants in as “horrifying”.

Meanwhile higher-than-average snowfall in the Rocky Mountains is sending more water into the Rio Grande and adjacent canals, creating deceptively swift waters. Border agents said they are rescuing immigrants from the river on an almost daily basis.

Last week, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 26, and his daughter Angie Valeria, 23 months, perished in the swift river currents close to the Mexican town of Matamoros. Dozens of migrants have drowned in the Rio Grande already this year.