The county is looking at cheaper ways to deal with the recent spike in paying for indigent burials.

According to officials they don't have the necessary resources to bury the bodies.

"According to medical examiner they have seen an increase in deaths in illegal crossings. They have seen drowning and even heat exhaustion but the county says they have no space to bury these bodies."

"Our department is in charge mandate by the state of Texas to burry all indigent, paupers and John Does and we've ran out of money."

Since January the medical examiners office has seen 40 immigrants who have died trying to cross the border. As a result more bodies are unclaimed, having to be stored in coolers for a long period of time.

"Typically I try to store the indigent for 30 to 60 days. We try to exhaust all means of trying to identify them and returning them to their families,” but that cost money and space, both of which the county is running out of.

The medical examiner says they are exhausting the indigent services more than ever.

" There's been in our offices for many weeks at a time. Because families can't come up with the money for their burials."

The law states that all of them need to be buried but that costs 21 hundred dollars per body, making the county look for other less expensive ways like cremation.

"John Does by the state of Texas cannot be cremated so we can only do indigent. It doesn’t cover the whole problem but it does to some degree."

According to indigent health care services cremation could save the county 35 thousand dollars per year, and the cost to cremate a body is a lot cheaper between eight to 15 hundred dollars.

"It affects the medical examiner officers, indigent services department and tax payers of Webb County who ultimately pay the bill for this."

Today the Indigent Services Department asked commissioners to consider the option of using cremation to save money.

The court will form a committee to look into the issue.

The commissioners also approved 55-thousand dollars for the costs of burials for the rest of the year.