A Honduran woman died at McAllen Medical Center in Border Patrol custody after being picked up near the Rio Grande and transported by ambulance to the hospital.
Tag: Migrant Deaths
March 26, 2021
A 9-year-old girl died trying to cross the Rio Grande river into Texas.
March 4, 2021
The thirteen migrants that were killed in a traffic collision near Holtville, California when a semi truck crashed into a vehicle carrying 25 migrants formed part of a larger group of 44 that had entered the United States through a hole in the border wall in the El Centro sector. The same day, a Chevrolet Suburban carrying the other 19 burst into flames and all passengers were taken into custody by Border Patrol.
February 22, 2021
A Venezuelan woman drowned while trying to cross the freezing Rio Grande near Piedras Negras, Mexico.
February 19, 2021
An 8-year-old Honduran boy drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas.
February 4, 2021
Attorneys filed whistleblower statements with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights claiming that CBP and Border Patrol leadership participated in a massive cover-up of the 2010 killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, an unarmed and detained migrant.
February 3, 2021
No More Deaths and Coalición de Derechos Humanos, two Arizona-based humanitarian groups, released an extensive report condemning Border Patrol for its emergency response efforts on the border. The report details negligence, hostility, and outright discrimination on the part of Border Patrol over the past 20 years and recommends the end of the agency’s predominant role in search and rescue.
January 5, 2021
President Trump signed the bipartisan Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act into law. This act will provide state and local governments and humanitarian organizations with more assistance and resources to find, recover, and identify bodies of migrants who have died trying to enter the US.
December 23, 2020
2020 was the deadliest year on record for migrants crossing into Arizona, with 225 remains of migrants found so far according to Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner. This is likely due to a combination of border wall construction forcing migrants to take remote routes, increased CBP hostility to humanitarian groups, and soaring temperatures.
October 29, 2020
- Local law enforcement officials in Santa Cruz County are investigating the deaths of two men believed to be undocumented migrants who were found dead over the past week near the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales.
October 26, 2020
- Two days after a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a Mexican national at the San Ysidro border, more than 50 activists and community members on Sunday held a vigil and continued calls for an independent and thorough investigation into the shooting.
Podcast: Beyond the Wall: “It’s all about the families”, Eddie Canales on preventing deaths and identifying missing migrants in Texas borderlands

Published by WOLA on October 30, 2020.
A conversation with Eduardo Canales of the South Texas Human Rights Center, about his organization’s fight to stop migrant deaths and to identify remains.
October 14, 2020
- With migrant deaths approaching levels not seen in years, humanitarian aid volunteers in southern Arizona say that the U.S. Border Patrol is using Covid-19 as a pretext to quietly dump large numbers of immigrants in Sasabe, one of the most remote and potentially dangerous communities in the Sonoran Desert, overwhelming the town’s limited immigration resources and placing individuals at significant risk of being targeted by organized criminal groups.
What New Official Data Tells Us About the Ongoing Tragedy at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Published by WOLA on October 16, 2020.
As the Homeland Security Department completes its 2020 fiscal year, a walk through some of the prominent findings from the year-end data.
September 29, 2020
- Artists unveiled a new, 50-foot-tall, two-sided mural in Chicano Park that honors the memory of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas and other immigrants who have died crossing the border or while in border agents’ custody.
Voices from the Border: Humanitarians and Missing Migrants
Published by Refugees International on July 29, 2020.
Experts and activists discuss deaths of migrants on U.S. soil, attacks on humanitarian workers, and efforts to identify the dead.
USA v Scott
Published by The New Yorker on July 8, 2020.
A documentary about Scott Warren, an Arizona professor who was arrested and charged with conspiracy to transport illegal aliens and harboring after providing humanitarian aid to migrants in the desert.
COVID-19 Border Closure Could Lead to Jump in Migrant Deaths in Summer Months

Published by WOLA on June 26, 2020.
May 2020 saw an increase in apprehensions of single adults, many of whom may seek to avoid apprehension by migrating through dangerous border sectors during the hot summer months.
June 8, 2020
- CBP warns of the summer heat for migrants crossing the border after Rio Grande City agents discover human remains in an area known for human and narcotics smuggling. Agents in Brooks County also responded to a 911 call for two lost men, both Mexican nationals, that CBP transported to emergency medical services.
May 27, 2020
- The University of Texas at Austin’s Strauss Center releases an incredibly detailed report on migrant deaths in south Texas over the last two decades. The report compiles 2,655 cases in the region collected from 1990 up until 2020, with an additional 615 cases accounting for deaths in the Rio Grande.