BREAKING: Texas National Guard soldier who died saving drug-smuggling migrants identified

According to the Texas Military Department, the soldier has been identified as 22-year-old Specialist Bishop E. Evans. Authorities have yet to recover his body.

Search efforts were forced to stop on Saturday evening, after the Texas Military Department said the river's current continued to increase in pace, making dive operations challenging.

Search and rescue efforts were able to restart on Sunday morning, with efforts from the Texas Rangers, the Texas Military Department, Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Parks and Wildlife, the Border Patrol, and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"SPC Evans, 22, a field artilleryman from Arlington, Texas is assigned to A Battery, 4-133 Field Artillery Regiment in New Braunfels Texas, and joined the Texas Army National Guard in May 2019. He returned in the fall of 2020 from mobilization to Operation Spartan Shield in Kuwait. During this mobilization, his dedication, talents, and tactical prowess led his leadership to regularly assign him to operations in Iraq in support of Special Operations Forces for short periods of time, while then rotating back into Kuwait," the Texas Military Department wrote.

The two illegal immigrants crossing the border that Evans was attempting to rescue were later revealed to have been "involved in illicit transnational narcotics trafficking," according to the Texas Military Department. The two remain in the custody of US Customs and Border Patrol.