By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
A cell phone app is credited with saving undocumented immigrants who were in bad shape after crossing the border.
The app, “Grid Me Now,” allows residents to send precise coordinates of undocumented immigrants to Border Patrol stations.
In one case, a rancher in Texas found a man who crossed the border illegally and was having a tough time. The rancher offered the man water and then sent the coordinates to the Border Patrol, KRGV reports.
Jon Parham, Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue team member, said, “He looked exhausted. He was not severe, but he definitely would have gotten there if he’d stayed out here any longer. Luckily, he made it out the road and somebody spotted him, called us in. We responded to it and got him the medical help he needed.”
In another case, a rancher spotted a young woman who needed medical attention, and she sent out an alert on the app.
“She was left behind, you know, just after Mother’s Day,” said Thomas W. Slowinski, deputy Border Patrol agent in charge in Falfurrias. “Who leaves a woman behind in the brush? Well, the ruthless smugglers do, okay. They left her behind too tired to walk, feet completely blistered. This rancher went by, saw her, gave us the information, need help, need medical help. That information came in, and of course we responded.”
Slowinski said the phone app is a great resource.
“It’s a tool for us to better communicate with the ranch community or the community at large, to generate information, precise information, through the use of the Internet in an application… that goes on smart phones to give us a precise location of the traffic they may encounter,” Slowinski said.
