The day before President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump both visited the U.S.-Mexico border, I traveled to the spot where Mr. Trump was scheduled to speak.
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President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump will both visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday. I traveled to the spot where Mr. Trump will speak the day before.
This group of migrants who swam across the border at night was stranded on a rock in the Rio Grande for hours. They faced barbed wire ahead of them on the U.S. side and treacherous waters as the wind picked up behind them.
A steady stream of migrants has been crossing the border in this area in recent months, after a surge late last year. Law enforcement officials described chaotic scenes and said they thought immigration policies were not being enforced.
The Rio Grande can be unpredictable. These officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety patrol the waters in search of people who need help, sometimes providing emergency medical assistance right on the boat.
But drownings have become a regular occurence. Officers found this man who died in the river shortly after I arrived. The somber scene was routine for the medical examiners who arrived two hours later.
I was struck by the clothes clinging to barbed wire along the riverbank. Some were abandoned strategically and others torn off backs, but all of them represented migrants’ journeys and the risks they faced.
Doug Mills has been a photographer in the Washington bureau of The Times since 2002. He previously worked at The Associated Press, where he won two Pulitzer Prizes. His Instagram is @nytmills. More about Doug Mills
