Death in the Desert

2020 Recovered Human Remains Map

This map is from Humane Borders in partnership with the Pima County Medical Examiners Office. Each red circle represents a recovered human remain.

US Immigration Policy and Death in the Desert

Since 1999 more than 2000 people have died in the Southern Arizona Borderland. These are women, men children ﬂeeing poverty, and trying to reunite with family. Since NAFTA was passed in the mid-90’s more than 3 million people have been displaced from farms in Mexico. NAFTA has benefited US agribusiness, but devastated small Mexican farmers. US-subsidized agricultural products (corn, sugarcane etc) are cheaper to buy in Mexico than the same produce grown locally.
People in the past crossed the border to work in the US while their families remained in Mexico. Following the passage of NAFTA it was anticipated that more people would come north for work, so politicians closed off the traditional border crossing areas. Walls and increased militarization were employed along the border n Texas, California and Nogales, Arizona; it was thought that the harsh conditions and terrain of the Southern Arizona Sonoran Desert would be a geographical barrier. But our government did not understand the determination of people to ﬁnd work to feed their families.
Their labor has always been needed in the US where many employers, including large corporations, are eager to hire hard working people from
south of the border to whom they pay low wages.
This has resulted in a disaster region in the Southern Arizona Borderland. Children, women and men die from dehydration, heat stroke and hypothermia. People continue to come out of desperation, to feed their families, and to reunite with parents and spouses from whom they have been separated. The number of deaths continues to escalate. Fewer people are crossing the border and being apprehended, but the percentage of deaths to crossers has greatly increased.