OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press

SALINAS VICTORIA, Mexico - Omar Garcia Escobedo's family thought their 25-year-old son had, like so many other migrants seeking work in the United States, drowned trying to cross the treacherous, fast flowing Rio Grande River.

After all, on Aug. 6, an investigator in Texas' Starr County called and said a man carrying a wallet with his ID card had drowned in the river. His father and a cousin went to the United States and identified the badly decomposed body from photographs.

But two days after the burial ceremony, the factory worker and father of a 10-month-old boy called to say he was alive and well in the border city of Brownsville, Texas.

The stunned family said Monday that Garcia Escobedo should be granted temporary U.S. residency and a work visa because of the foul-up. They also want U.S. authorities to take back the body of the unidentified man they put in the ground and pay the $2,500 a funeral home charged them for the burial services.

"We told them my cousin had a scar on his left eyebrow and that his toes were crooked," said Melva Villareal, a cousin who went to the United States to identify the body. "They told us our description matched the body and we trusted them."

Garcia Escobedo's wife and father went with Villareal to the Starr County Sheriff's department office in Rio Grande City and identified the body through photographs. They held a funeral for him on Thursday and were still deeply grieving when they received a telephone call from Garcia Escobedo on Saturday.

"He told me, 'Mama I couldn't call earlier because they robbed me and I couldn't afford a phone card until now,'" his mother, Margarita Escobedo, said.

Garcia Escobedo worked at one of the many assembly-for-export factories that surround his village and earned about $70 a week, his mother said. He headed to the United States from his home in Salinas Victoria, about 100 miles from Laredo, Texas, in early August and was robbed when he arrived at the border.

Family members at first said they planned to sue Texas authorities for negligence, but have since backed off that claim. They said instead they'd prefer for Garcia Escobedo to avoid deportation back to Mexico.

"The only thing I want is that they leave my son alone so that he can work," said his father, also named Omar. "I ask that they put his papers in order."

The family says the misunderstanding began when U.S. authorities did not allow them to view the body directly while in Texas. They said the corpse was already in a closed coffin at the funeral home when they arrived in Rio Grande City.

Sandra Mendoza, a spokeswoman for the Mexican consulate in McAllen, Texas, said the body was not shown to relatives because it was badly decomposed. Identifying victims using photographs is standard procedure for drowning victims, she said.

"For us, when the family identifies the body the identity is confirmed," Mendoza said.

An officer at the Starr County Sheriff's department wouldn't comment on the case.

Villareal said a lawyer told the family Garcia Escobedo will have to turn himself in to prove he's indeed alive.

Garcia Escobedo's mother said she hoped the U.S. government would cover the costs of the incorrect funeral.

"We are looking for a way to pay that much money," she said, adding that the debt comes due Wednesday. "I don't work and my husband has diabetes and arthritis and makes barely enough to support us."

Escobedo said U.S. authorities should also come claim the incorrect body and make sure the yet-to-be-identified victim is transferred to his loved ones.

"Now we don't know what's going to happen to the person that's here," she said. "I prayed so much and cried so much that I think that they should come and take the body because his mother is probably the one crying now."