Family of National Guard soldier who gave life to save migrants speak out
The grandparents of the National Guardsman who drowned trying to save two migrants from the Rio Grande said they're not surprised the boy they raised died trying to save someone's life.
Officials confirmed Monday that they had recovered the body of 22-year-old Specialist Bishop Evans, who went missing Friday in Eagle Pass, Texas, after attempting to rescue the two migrants who were illegally crossing into the U.S. and were smuggling drugs.
Evans' family, who live eight hours away from the border in Arlington, Texas, traveled to the Rio Grande to assist in the search. After his body was recovered, they gathered for a Monday press conference to publicly share their grief.
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"He wouldn't ask you who you were before he tried to help you. He just wouldn't," his grandmother, Jo Ann Johnson, told WFAA and other local media on Monday. "It doesn't matter your nationality, how you look, your color hair. That's who my baby was."
Evans' grandfather, Dannie Johnson, also remembered his grandson as a caring and exuberant person.
"He would help you in need. He would die for you, he did die. He's going to be missed and always be loved and carried in our hearts," he said. We want to be positive about Bishop, because he was a positive person, and I would like to leave it at that."
Jo Ann Johnson said it was "very tough" not knowing her grandson's fate for days as the search for him continued, adding that it was "hard to withstand." But now that Evans' body has been recovered, his grandparents said they feel they have at least gained some form of closure.
"We can move forward, we can start healing and the family can grieve and then we can move on," Evans's grandmother said.
Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Texas Rangers and Border Patrol agents conducted the search and recovery efforts.
In a statement to Fox News on Sunday, the Texas Military Department said that Texas Rangers confirmed from initial reports that the two migrants Evans attempted to rescue "were involved in illicit transnational narcotics trafficking."
Evans was a field artilleryman assigned to A Battery, 4-133 Field Artillery Regiment in New Braunfels, joining the Texas Army National Guard in May 2019. He returned in the fall of 2020 after he was mobilized to Operation Spartan Shield in Kuwait, a multi-component organization that maintains a U.S. military presence in Southwest Asia.
As The New York Post reported Monday, Evans was stationed in Eagle Pass as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star. The governor launched the initiative in March 2021 to send the Texas National Guard to the border to help quell the massive increase in illegal border crossings under the Biden administration.
According to a March 4 post on Abbott's website, since the program's launch, state troopers and National Guard members have apprehended more than 208,000 migrants and filed more than 11,800 criminal charges, including more than 9,300 felony charges.
The Texas governor released a statement Monday about Evans' death, saying that "National Guard soldiers risk their lives every day to serve and protect others and we are eternally grateful for the way SPC Evans heroically served his state and country."
On Monday evening, Abbott directed that flags be lowered to half-staff in Evans' honor.
In a letter to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas Democratic Sen. Roland Gutierrez criticized Abbott's Operation Lone Star initiative and called for an inquest into Evans' death, according to WFAA.
"The death of this young man was highly avoidable and further proves that the Governor is ill-prepared to provide solutions for this issue," Gutierrez stated.
After Evans' body was recovered Monday, Texas Rep. Chip Roy blamed the Biden administration's handling of the border for the guardsmen's death. The congressman also called for the two illegal migrants Evans attempted to rescue to face charges in relation to his death but did not specify the severity of the potential punishment.
"This was a horrible tragedy that was completely avoidable if we actually enforced the laws of the United States," the congressman said in a statement to The New York Post. "This is a national guardsman who died jumping in the river and these people are moving narcotics."
According to federal statistics submitted to a federal court earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security reported 221,303 total encounters at the Southwest Border and 123,304 total expulsions of noncitizens in March.
