Before massacre, El Paso became a hot spot on Mexican border

Deny Martinez paid a smuggler $7,000 to take him and his teenage son from Honduras to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, across from El Paso, Texas. An unprecedented wave of Central American families has reached the U.S. border this year — most strikingly in El Paso, where the suspected assailant was linked to an online screed against a "Hispanic invasion" and Latino asylum seekers. It is unknown why the gunman traveled from his hometown near Dallas to El Paso, but the border city of 700,000 people has become a hotbed for immigrant crossings after years of being one of the sleepiest locations on the border.