Oscar Andrade claims that in the Arizona desert, where temperatures have risen to 110 degrees Fahrenheit this year, there is a chance to save migrants every day.
Heat-related deaths are occurring. In addition to the fact that it is cold in the desert during the winter and that we must constantly provide them water and assistance, they also risk hypothermia and death if they do not wear warm clothing. Andrade, an evangelical preacher who leads Capellanes del Desierto (Desert Chaplains), a group devoted to desert search and rescue operations, stated that temperatures are an issue.
The organization has been operating in the border states of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California for four years. During that time, it has discovered 183 bodies and saved 362 lives.
Andrade is concerned by the quantity of sets of migrant remains.
In reference to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Andrade stated, “We have numbers of people who died that neither the coroner nor CBP has because those remains have not been recovered.” Since many of the bones we have discovered in the desert are incomplete, it is frequently impossible to perform a DNA test on the remains because there is no means of obtaining it.
In Arizona, the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office recorded 3,634 migrant deaths from FY 2000–2022, while the Border Patrol recorded only 3,069 deaths during the same period, a discrepancy of nearly 17%. This finding echoes Andrade’s concerns and those of other activists operating in the desert.
According to Daniel Martinez, a sociology professor and co-director of the University of Arizona’s Binational Migration Institute who took part in the study and had it published in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, “Border Patrol undercounts tend to underestimate the number of migrant deaths occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border relative to forensic medical authorities in the relevant regions.”
The biggest differences in numbers, according to the researchers’ data, happened in 2021 and 2020, when Pima County reported 225 and 206 migrant deaths, respectively, while the Border Patrol reported 78 and 43.
‘True scale’ is unknown
The International Organization for Migration claims that the border between the United States and Mexico is the deadliest land migration route in the world. At least 5,405 people had perished or vanished along it since 2014, with the most recent figures dating back to 2021, as of August.
The exact number of people dying in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands is simply unknown, and much of this is because there is a dearth of reliable data across the border, which reduces the actual scope of the humanitarian catastrophe, Martinez added.
Ultimately, we must remember that each of these people was a brother, sister, cousin, mother, or parent to somewhere. “Not being able to understand the humanity of migrants is problematic,” he remarked.
Since the mid-2010s, there has been a significant shift in migration along the U.S.-Mexico border. In addition to the rise in the number of migrants reaching the border, Martinez noted that the majority of migrants are now young Mexican men who migrate for economic reasons in order to send money home, rather than men, women, children, and families from other nations who come to the border to apply for asylum.
Over 1,500 persons without immigration documents were in morgues, labs, or graves in June, according to a Noticias Telemundo study of records in 23 border counties in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida. They were awaiting identification and repatriation. 1,388 unnamed migrants from Pima, Cochise, and Santa Cruz counties died in Arizona.
Andrade claimed that a number of variables make it challenging to find and identify the bodies of the dead migrants he encounters on a regular basis.
He claimed that in order to prevent the territory from being recognized, organized crime officials give the coyotes, or smugglers, orders not to reveal the precise sites where migrants have perished. According to Andrade, we think that around 1,000 examples of undiscovered remains exist.
Border Patrol changes and their impact
The disparity between the number of migrant deaths reported by Border Patrol and coroners’ offices started to widen in 2013 and has continued to do so, according to Martinez and his study team.
According to a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, the discrepancies stem from a particular shift in the organization’s operations.
The Border Patrol was tasked with attempting to locate as many deaths as possible in border counties as part of a border security program that concluded in 2012.
However, once the effort stopped, it only tracked the remains and deaths it discovered during daily patrols and enforcement operations, as well as through partnerships with local law enforcement, citizens, and humanitarian organizations.
Since we come into contact with remains, we count them if we locate them. According to the CBP spokeswoman, it is highly probable that we will not count incidents in which we are unsure or lack complete information.
The official emphasized that the Pima County coroner’s data is accurate because the county is legally in charge of counting those statistics and that the office is not attempting to conceal anything or minimize the number of deaths.
“That’s accurate,” stated Gene Hernandez, the medicolegal death investigator supervisor for Pima County. “We serve the counties that are closest to the border: Cochise, Santa Cruz, and Pima. The authorities are also required by law to deliver all of the remains to our office. We have been processing the remains of about 4,000 migrants who perished in the desert since 2000.
The new 35,000-square-foot forensic facility in Pima, which has six autopsy stations and specialized laboratories, debuted this year. Official data indicates that over 460,000 migrants were arrested in the Tucson region alone in the previous fiscal year due to a spike in crossings in Arizona.
We have brand-new, highly functional facilities. For this reason, I urge individuals to get in touch with us if they have a missing family,” Hernandez stated. “We frequently have their possessions, clothing, and identification documents that assist us identify them. We would like it if the families could assist us, and they wouldn’t need to worry since we wouldn’t ask them if they had any documents.”
Immigration laws and their effect
A ballot initiative to grant state and local law enforcement agencies more power to enforce immigration rules that are normally entrusted to the federal government was approved by Arizona voters in the most recent election.
The measure, among other things, makes it illegal for immigrants to enter Arizona illegally from other countries unless they are using ports of entry, to give false information when applying for jobs or public benefits, or to refuse to return to their home countries if court orders them to do so.
Deportations will rise as a result of this step, increasing the risk of crossing for migrants. Furthermore, cartels are allegedly enlisting migrants and pressuring them to commit crimes, according to an increasing number of complaints coming from the Mexican side, Andrade stated. We advise against crossing any more since the risks are too great.
Donald Trump, the president-elect, has stated that he intends to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have entered the US lawfully through two programs: the CBP One mobile-based asylum system and humanitarian parole. Trump intends, among other things, to abolish so-called sanctuary cities, which provide migrants with additional safeguards against deportation.
Trump has also stated his intention to reactivate Title 42, which expired in May 2023 but was put in place during his first term during the COVID-19 outbreak and permitted the swift removal of unauthorized immigrants who crossed the border.
According to Martinez’s analysis, the average number of migrant deaths in southern Arizona rose from 133 annually in the six years prior to Title 42 to 198 annually after the policy’s implementation, a 48% increase.
As a result of tightening immigration laws, the researchers discovered that migrants were increasingly traveling via isolated regions of southern Arizona, like Organ Pipe National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, where they perished at a high rate.
Andrade and his team of rescuers can see those shifts and patterns.
We are aware that the routes are subject to constant alteration. According to Andrade, the coyotes will lead our migrant brothers through increasingly hazardous and difficult terrain without even a telephone service.
Although the results are specific to Arizona, the researchers have found comparable patterns in other parts of the Southwest.
According to the Arizona-based study, data from a recent report released this year by the nongovernmental organization No More Deaths, which was based on records from the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office and the University of New Mexico Medical Investigator’s Office, indicate a similar pattern in southern New Mexico and the area around El Paso, Texas.
The CBP official underlined how crucial it is to caution migrants against crossing the border illegally, particularly during Arizona’s scorching summer months.
Andrade stated that his organization intends to equip itself to better serve the needs of migrants and their families who call it in times of distress. He acknowledged the difficulties of attempting to assist people in such remote locations.
“There will be an increase; these crossings will not stop,” he said, “so we are mentally and physically preparing ourselves to perform better and be able to assist in cooperation with the patrol and carry out these searches or recoveries of bodies.”
This article was originally published in Noticias Telemundo in an earlier version.
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