Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents rescued a Honduran man and his seven-year-old son after cartel-connected human smugglers abandoned them on a ranch in one of Texas’s deadliest counties for migrants.

Falfurrias Station Border Patrol agents apprehended a group of illegal immigrants along U.S. Highway 281 south of the immigration checkpoint. The group of migrants told the agents that a father and son became separated from the group, according to information provided by Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.

The agents called for assistance from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations helicopter crew from the McAllen Air Branch and a Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) K-9 team. Following an extensive search, agents located the father and his seven-year-old son who had both been abandoned by their human smuggling guide.

A Border Patrol emergency medical technician evaluated the father and son and cleared them medically for processing.

When human smugglers abandon migrants in the brush that surrounds the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint on U.S. Highway 281, frequently they are found after dying from exposure to the elements, Breitbart Texas reported. So far this year, Brooks County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Border Patrol agents recovered the remains of at least 43 migrants who died in this single Texas county.

The last reported death came in late November when Brooks County deputies recovered the skeletal remains of a migrant on a ranch located northeast of the Falfurrias checkpoint, Breitbart Texas reported.

Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez told Breitbart Texas earlier this year it is very common to find remains like this toward the end of the long journey around the Border Patrol checkpoint.

“If [migrants] become weak, injured, or for any other reason can’t keep up with the group, the coyote will simply leave them behind to die,” the sheriff explained. “The failure of the federal government to properly secure the border continues to lead to death.”

“The callous human smugglers that operate freely and profit from the loopholes in our legal system care nothing for the safety and health of the migrants they are paid to transport,” the sheriff continued. “Anyone who falls behind, for any reason, is simply left behind to die.”

“Since I began tracking these deaths in 2009, nearly 700 migrants have died in the ranches of our single county,” Martinez stated. “These deaths will continue until Congress fixes the loopholes in the immigration and asylum system and funds proper border security measures.”

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face book.