County, private parties must join to build proper memorial
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While the roadside sign was a nice gesture, the makeshift memorial along Fleming Prairie Road deserves a more fitting, permanent treatment. The memorial today lives in a weed-filled ditch.
We call for the county and private parties to work together to create a proper memorial at the site.
The 19 illegal immigrants, and those who visit to honor their May 2003 deaths, deserve a lasting and respectable site that reflects the meaning of this south Victoria County ground.
We don't wish to glamorize or encourage crime such as illegal immigration. Rather, we think a suitable memorial better honors the historic tragedy, which painfully plays out on other roads and within the national debate still today.
After the tragedy, the Victoria County Road Department installed a sign that reads, "In Memory of the 19 Immigrants Who Died May 14, 2003."
The sign stands where police found bodies stuffed into the tractor-trailer.
Stuffed animals, crosses and water bottles, left by mourners, dangle on the nearby barbed wire fence or poke through the weeds that overflow from the adjacent pasture. Trash also mixes with the keepsakes.
For six years, visitors come from as faraway as El Salvador and as nearby as Houston. They groom the site for each yearly anniversary.
Since the tragedy, many have talked about creating something more permanent here. Yet, nothing was built.
Victoria County Sheriff T. Michael O'Connor scoured his family's land for survivors six years ago. He leads private efforts to build a proper memorial.
"The site is symbolic because of what the event was, and because of how it's changed us in this area and, really, the entire nation," O'Connor said.
O'Connor stood among the dozens who gather in the road each year for the tragedy's anniversary. He wants to build a proper site just north of the ditch and in the pasture. "It has to come from the heart and soul," he said.
The doctor who owns the pasture just north of the site agrees that a new memorial is a good idea, but he has liability concerns, O'Connor said. The sheriff asked the doctor to donate a small parcel to Our Lady of Sorrows, which agreed to help with the site.
O'Connor wants to relocate the bit of fence - that stretch that holds all those keepsakes - into the pasture and off the road. Public safety requires it. Tractor-trailers rumble all day along the narrow dirt road that splits the memorial from a busy truck stop.
"We want the memorial where it's safe. I want it moved somewhere where visitors could quietly go and reflect," O'Connor said. "We would build a perimeter fence and add benches. We could have a hand-carved wooden sign, or a stone marker. It's not a monumental amount of cost."
We applaud O'Connor's wishes and hope the doctor and church join efforts. We also ask the county to chip in with plans, manpower and partial funding.
You need look no further than today's newspaper to learn that no matter what side of the immigration debate you stand on, the deaths were senseless. Everyone who died in that trailer did so to reunite with family or to connect with better-paying jobs.
While Victoria County's part in this tragedy was as a mere victim of location, its residents and leaders should no longer stand by as weeds and inaction overrun this sacred ground.
Never before in this country's history had so many illegal immigrants died in a botched human smuggling attempt. It's about time we pay the tragedy the proper respect it deserves.
This editorial reflects the views of the Victoria Advocate's editorial board.
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T. Michael O'Connor is always asking for more $$ for his dept. to hunt down illegals in the county, isn't it kinda contradictory of him to want to memorialize them in this fashion? Maybe he wants a place where he can catch them en mass to save on man power.
I still say not only NO, but choose your expletive NO!!!!
July 26, 2009 at 7:42 p.m.Let me get this strate a memorial for braking the LAW you all are JOKING right!!
July 26, 2009 at 6:11 p.m.If the county spends any money on the site I think it should be spent to keep the area clean. The items left are sun baked and wind blown and the area is a mess. A sad reminder of the tragedy.
I think the landowner is correct in having concerns about the site being a memorial. I assume most of the visitors to the site are there illegally. Most people would wonder why an effort was not being made to "round them up". If an effort was made to patrol the site for illegals it would be considered by some to be a "trap". The controversey would continue and get ugly.
Why can't the dead be mourned at the place of their burial and not at the site of this horrible event.
Our law enforcement and emergency personnel had to respond to a horrific event to which most of us can not understand the impact and I think they deserve the memorial.
July 26, 2009 at 9 a.m.Mick Vick just got out of prison for participating in the cruel act of dog fighting. How long should the "editiorial board" be put away for beating this horse to death for over a year?
I don't "must" do anything demanded by a bunch of carpet baggers who will be gone from the area in a few years. If private funds MUST be used, let the newspaper owners and their wealthy yosemites build a legacy of their decency for all the world to see.
And we all know no wealthy ranch owners use illegals in their operations......now or ever.....
July 26, 2009 at 5:34 a.m.Now, one of our Border Patrol agents was murdered yesterday at the hands of an illegal alien. Unless the county sends funds to set up a memorial for one of our own, they definately should NOT spend our precious resources honoring illegals/criminals. One does not know the intent of every man that was in that trailer, how can anyone state as fact they were coming here to make a better life. Illegals commit crimes here on a regular basis (see Baytown Seafood restaurant employees),criminals should not be memorialized.
July 26, 2009 at 1:23 a.m.The memorial is alive & well in the illegal mother, her illegal daughter who has had 3 kids at taxpayer expense & her youngest & newest illegal son. The fact they are all here illegally, giving their names, hometowns & descriptions of where they work is a walking, talking, living memorial. Why hasn't INS sent them packing yet?
July 26, 2009 at 12:34 a.m.What makes a person sneak over here from Mexico, the promise, because their are business needing cheap help, and wealthy people needing cheap help cleaning the house, taking care of their children. Slavery is alive, pay a little for a lot and if some die getting here, put a memorial to show just how much you care, and maybe they will keep coming.
July 25, 2009 at 9:05 p.m.it was a horrible tragedy, one which the county handled pretty damn well.
i see nothing wrong with some sort of memorial to the responders and the victims. seems to me that a mix of private funds, with some assistance from the county would be best.
July 25, 2009 at 8 p.m.Did not the Spanish colonize all of what is now Mexico and a lot of what is now Central and South America?
Did the French,Portuguese,Dutch and Britannica not do the same thing?
Does Mexico have a memorial to the Aztecs (other than the historical sites that are still there)?
Does Belize and Guatemala have a memorial to the Mayans (other than the historical sites that are still there)?
IS there any memorial anywhere in Central or South America that recognizes the native population that was displaced?
So explain to me why, that people who payed there own money to get in to the US, and happened to chose the wrong smuggler, and passed away during there attempt, deserve a tax payer funded memorial?
What exactly makes the people that died committing a crime special?
Yes, it was a shame,they payed there money, spun the roulette wheel, and it came up 00. No winners, there bet there choice.
July 25, 2009 at 6:16 p.m.Your going to compare the first European settlers, that colonized a new land to people that only illegally crossed a border?
This isn't 1506.
July 25, 2009 at 5:53 p.m.amen! speechfree
July 25, 2009 at 5:45 p.m.Respect for human life is a fundamental christian value as all life stems from the same source. These desperate souls took a great risk seeking a better life as pioneers did on the Mayflower. The only difference is their country of origin. The memorial at Plymouth rock should be the model for the memorial.
July 25, 2009 at 5:40 p.m."Must" is a big word that often is misused. Why should taxpayers money go for an memorial for this event? I don't see any local memorials for fallen immigrates of time pass that died from disease and Native American attacks.
July 25, 2009 at 5:28 p.m.There are days when I am very angry about the illegal immigrant situation. But to think that any human being would be so desperate to pack into a hot trailer, men, women and children to come here for whatever reason saddens me and is a total tragedy anyway you look at it. The wrong of the situation should not keep us from being the compassionate people we should be. I think erecting an appropriate safe memorial would be a good thing and a nice gesture from us. There comes a time that we just need to set aside our differences and strip ourselves down to the bare heart and imagine ourselves in their place. It might be just a few benches and "stuff" to some but to others it is connection to someone they loved and lost in a horrible tragedy. I think it's a great idea!
July 25, 2009 at 5:15 p.m.Well, I came back from vacation and turn on the computer to catch up on Victoria news.The first thing is ANOTHER thing for that roadside fatal funnel. After you place a marker, how bout another one saying how the deaths were in association with illegal activities that they knew were risky. ENOUGH!!!!!
July 25, 2009 at 4:38 p.m.