Leo, a 14-year-old undocumented immigrant, had joined volunteers searching the banks of the Guadalupe River four days after the deadly Central Texas floods of July 4 when he slipped and fell into treacherous waters contaminated with corpses and debris. He emerged with flesh and finger bones exposed on a left hand that had been nearly severed.
For an excruciating hour, his parents were gripped by fear. What if the hospital staff asked for immigration documents? Finally, they broke down and brought him for care, the family said.
“They are going to take him away,” Gabriela, Leo’s 42-year-old mother, recalled thinking, as doctors wheeled her son away. Both asked to be identified only by their first names because of their immigration statuses.
Local, state and federal officials have said repeatedly that aid and medical assistance are flowing into Texas Hill Country in the wake of floods that killed at least 135 people and injured scores more.
But immigrant rights groups and religious volunteers in the region worry that undocumented residents in Central Texas, such as Leo and his family, are not getting what they need amid immigration crackdowns that have pressed a large migrant community underground. “A lot of people are afraid,” said Sonya De La Garza-Walker, a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens in San Antonio, a Latino civil rights organization that has assisted in the devastated areas. “They think that asking for help may call attention to themselves.”
Officials in Kerr County did not respond to requests for comment about the area’s undocumented community. The county, at the heart of the Texas Hill Country, suffered 108 known deaths, including at least 27 counselors and campers from Camp Mystic.
During a recent Texas legislative committee hearing that took place in Kerrville, the county seat, Auburne Gallagher, a witness, pleaded with legislators, “Did you account for the illegal population in our area?”
When the legislators failed to answer, she did. “No,” she said, “you did not.”
Ms. Gallagher, who lives in Leander, Texas, said in an interview on Thursday that, despite the criticism she received on social media about her views on illegal immigration, she believed that everyone deserved aid after a natural disaster.
“We’re all human beings. We’re all God’s children, whether we’re here legally or illegally,” Ms. Gallagher said. “Everybody should be treated humanely. If you need something, ask.”
It is difficult to measure the size of the undocumented population, much less the number of people who may be injured and unaided. The region, known for its rugged and wide-open spaces, is home to summer camps for children, vacation homes for the wealthy, and inns, camp sites and R.V. parks for the working class. It has grown more diverse in the last decade as the service economy has expanded.
Latinos, totaling 13,598 in the 2020 census, make up about 30 percent of the population of Kerr County, where they work in the camps, construction and agriculture.
Fear in the undocumented community is so palpable that many warn each other in group texts using the code word “hielo,” which means “ice” in Spanish, the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Alonso Ramirez, a pastor at Mision Bautista Hispana in Comfort, Texas, 18 miles east of Kerrville.
“A lot of people would rather not leave their homes unless they have to,” he said.
In the aftermath of the Fourth of July floods, Teresa Salas, 70, said she rushed to a church for Spanish-speaking faithful in Comfort, Texas, to offer help to migrants, many of them undocumented, who were seeking a safe space. The large police presence had made many of them nervous, even if the authorities were not in town to pick up undocumented residents, she said.
In December of 1984, Ms. Salas and her daughter, Gloria Peña, 53, were living in the Hill Country, without legal authorization, when another flash flood hit. Ms. Salas and Ms. Peña escaped with their lives, but Juan Manuel Barraza, Ms. Salas’s husband and Ms. Peña’s father, was found dead, along with two of Ms. Salas’s daughters and Ms. Peña’s sisters, Beatriz and Erica, then just 3 and 2 years old.
Ms. Salas and Ms. Peña became legal residents under an immigration amnesty program by President Ronald Reagan. But they remember the trauma that others are reliving now.
“I understand their fear, because I was in their shoes,” Ms. Salas said. “All we can do is offer a lending hand. They don’t have a lot of places where they feel safe, and just like everybody else here they need help.”
Gabriela, who sought medical care for her wounded teenage son despite their immigration statuses, said her family felt the same way. They stay indoors in their humble home in Kerr County unless they have to go to work, she at a restaurant and her husband, Francisco, 39, in construction.
The morning of July 8, she said her son was moved by the tragedy at Camp Mystic, where most of the deaths were concentrated in two cabins that housed the youngest campers, and joined a group of search-and-rescue volunteers along the Guadalupe River.
The once placid river where he and his two brothers liked to go swimming had been ravaged. Torn trees, appliances, debris and even corpses littered the banks. Then the boy tripped. Blood was dripping down his leg. He could see finger bones protruding through the skin of his mangled left hand.
“Maybe I was in shock, but at the time I did not feel pain,” he said.
At first, his parents thought they could treat him at home. Family members were aware that Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order last year requiring some hospitals to collect data on undocumented patients, part of a broader effort to curtail tax money going to residents living in the state illegally.
Patients are not required to answer the citizenship question, and hospital officials have said they cannot turn away patients if they can’t present legal documents.
Gabriela said she was not aware of those details. Her motherly instincts kicked in. She feared that the dead bodies and debris in the river had contaminated her son’s open wounds. After a fierce debate, the family decided that Leo’s health was worth the risk of deportation.
“Yes, I was afraid,” Gabriela said. “But I was more afraid that he may get sicker here at home and even something worse, a bad infection and even death.”
At a local clinic, medical staff told them that they could not do much for him other than to clean his hand and wrap it with bandages. They loaded into the family truck and drove an hour east to an emergency room in San Antonio where they were told that the teenager needed emergency surgery.
Leo, seeing his parent’s worried expressions, pulled on his mother’s sleeve and told her they could go home. “No,” she said. “We are saving your hand.”
While their son was undergoing surgery, his parents were questioned by medical workers about their health insurance and how they planned to pay for the boy’s care. Their immigration status did not come up, she said.
Last week, the boy was still recovering with a cast on his hand. He had regained movement of most of his fingers and hoped to return to school. A bill of nearly $40,000 had arrived in the mail, and the family was trying to figure out how to pay it.
“Money comes and goes,” Gabriela said. “All that matters is that he is home, healthy, and we are still together.”
Desiree Rios contributed reporting and Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.
Edgar Sandoval covers Texas for The Times, with a focus on the Latino community and the border with Mexico. He is based in San Antonio.
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