A consequence of increased border enforcement

George Etheredge

Manny Fernandez of The New York Times has a terrific, but of course horrible, interactive feature on migrant deaths along the US southwest border. In the last sixteen years, the Border Patrol has documented over 6,000 migrant deaths along the Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas borders with Mexico,

Some small towns are overrun with bodies as they do not have coroners on staff. However, the Texas State University’s Forensic Anthropology Center is helping to identify the remains on those who died crossing the border.

One man, Francisco Gonzalez, died after he had been deported from the US following a drinking and driving incident. He died attempting to return to his fiancée and three-month old daughter in Houston. His remains have yet to be found.

For the last thirty years, the US government has worked to make it more difficult for migrants to cross into the country illegally. It has added thousands of Border Patrol agents, hundreds of miles of border wall and fencing, and surveillance technology. One of the obvious consequences for migrants who are not deterred is that they must take more dangerous paths into the US.

Take a look at A Path to America, Marked by More and More Bodies (Spanish version).