But as Garza, the sheriff’s investigator, walked along a path designated by GPS coordinates for the barrels, there were no signs of melted, blue plastic. Road construction crews frequently push or move aside obstructions for their work. Wildfires are common in this part of Texas, where dry grass quickly becomes fuel. The Associated Press compared images captured by Google Maps over the last two years and confirmed that some barrels that were once there were gone. On one of his rounds in July, Meza said, 12 of the 21 stations he maintains were no longer there. Tears streamed down his face as he recalled helping locate a missing migrant man who became overheated in the brush, called for help but died just moments after his rescue. “We don’t have the luxury of losing time in what we do,” said Ruben Garza, an investigator with the Jim Hogg Sheriff’s Office. More than 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, it can take several days to walk there for migrants who may have already spent weeks crossing mountains and desert and avoiding cartel violence. Migrants - and sometimes human smugglers - take a route through this county to try to circumvent a Border Patrol checkpoint on a busier highway about 30 miles to the east. Summer temperatures can climb to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Texas’ sparsely populated Jim Hogg County, with its vast, inhospitable ranchlands. The stakes of solving this mystery are high. Ohio GOP doubles down after voters reject their bid to make it harder to change the state constitution - a sign of nationwide GOP antagonism toward citizens’ ballot measures. World & Nation Failed Ohio amendment reflects Republican efforts nationally to restrict direct democracy
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