Map - Brooks County, Texas (Brooks County)

Brooks County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 7,076. Its county seat is Falfurrias. The county is named for James Abijah Brooks, a Texas Ranger and legislator. It is one of the poorest counties in Texas. Much of it is large ranches: part of the King Ranch occupies the eastern portion of the county; the Mariposa Ranch is the largest on the county's east side. About 88% of the county's population is Latino.

In the documentary Missing in Brooks County, Brooks County is called the "epicenter" of America's immigration problem. Already in 2014 it was called a "Death Valley" for migrants. Brooks County is "the nation's busiest corridor for illegal immigration;" a tracking camera records up to 150 a night going through one piece of property. More illegal migrants die in Brooks County than in any other county in America. Though it lies about 80 mi miles north of the border, it is on a main route for anyone entering from Mexico toward San Antonio and Dallas.

The biggest employer in Brooks County is the Border Patrol interior checkpoint on US 281, built in 1994 and much enlarged in 2019, called the Falfurrias checkpoint although it is not within the city. Many migrants attempt to bypass it by hiking some 35 mi through the open, dry terrain, called by ranchers "the killing fields".

The ground is sandy and hard to walk on. Lack of landmarks often causes disorientation; some migrants walk in circles. Bright sun and high summer temperatures—regularly over 100 °F—kill many of them of dehydration and exposure. They are also subject to mistreatment by smugglers, who may rape them or hold them for ransom by relatives. There are typically "a few dozen cellphone calls a day" to 911 from migrants in distress; between 2016 and 2018 there were 722 calls leading to rescues. The Border Patrol carried out the rescues, in the process arresting and/or deporting the rescued.

Every day, some 60 to 70 undocumented immigrants are apprehended by the Border Patrol of Brooks County, often saving their lives. According to Tom Slowinski, in charge of the facility in 2019, "no other checkpoint anywhere on the Southwest border catches more alien smuggling cases than this checkpoint right here."

Migrants bypassing the Border Patrol checkpoint sometimes damage property, tear down fences, steal, or threaten people on the ranches through which they pass. Residents resent the reputation the Border Patrol checkpoint has given their county, and the drain on their time and resources to deal with the many corpses—recovering, identifying when possible, and burying them—for a problem they did not create and have almost no control over. Between 2009 and 2018, over 600 bodies were recovered, and according to sheriff's deputy Benny Martinez, the corpses never found are 5 to 10 times more numerous than those found. Another estimate is over 2000. The missing persons reports are much more numerous than the bodies recovered. Most bodies are never identified.

The county has been described as "the biggest cemetery in America", the cost of dealing with migrant corpses has bankrupted the county, which has unsuccessfully sought federal help. The sheriff's department has been cut from 12 to 2 deputies, working 48 hour weeks with no health insurance and aging cars. The only public library in Brooks County, the Ed Rachal Memorial Library, is, in 2021, open one day a week. The Border Patrol, which does not answer 911 calls or recover dead bodies as a matter of policy, has in Brooks County dozens of new 4-wheel drive trucks with infrared, its own car wash, a helicopter, a blimp, a canine team, and 300 well-paid agents. (In 2019 pay for a starting agent with a high school diploma was $55,800 . ) In 2019 the facility was replaced by a new and larger one. It is the largest border checkpoint facility in the country, with the most modern equipment.