Near Yuma, a Mexican man died after falling from a 30-foot-high section of border wall. He fell on the Mexican side, requiring rescuers to open a gate in the wall that was not wide enough for an ambulance, then carry him for a mile before he passed away.
While border-zone migrant deaths from dehydration, exposure, or similar causes are horrifyingly common, most victims have been single adults: migrant parents and children have been rare. That seems to be changing.
Federal charges have been filed against Antonio Hurtado, the captain of a boat that ran aground near San Diego and killed three migrants.
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.
A 9-year-old girl died trying to cross the Rio Grande river into Texas.
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.
A Venezuelan woman drowned while trying to cross the freezing Rio Grande near Piedras Negras, Mexico.
An 8-year-old Honduran boy drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.