Dying to Flee Mexico for America: Tracking the Missing But Unforgotten Maria Sacchetti - The Boston Globe
go to original July 30, 2014

The video highlights some of the work that No More Deaths does and some of the inhumane occurrences which have happened on the U.S./Mexico border. (J. Rodriguez)

...More than 6,000 immigrants have died crossing the southern border since 1998, according to federal records, and hundreds of them have never been identified.

Typically when someone is missing in the United States, family members file a police report, an investigation ensues, and then, as hope fades, relatives provide DNA samples in case an unidentified body is found.

But the families of immigrants who go missing along the border — likely victims of exposure or dehydration — are largely shut out of this system. Because no one really knows precisely where they disappeared, there is no straightforward way for family members to file an official missing person report or to deposit a DNA profile in the FBI’s national database to match to the bodies found along the border.

Police often refuse to take missing person reports. Border Patrol and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they do not investigate such cases.

And many families of the missing have no idea where to file reports anyway, or they fear getting deported if they contact police.

As a result, hundreds of unknown bodies — including children — have been buried in Arizona and Texas, where the largest numbers of deaths are recorded.

Read the rest at The Boston Globe

In a rural Texas county, an increasing number of illegal immigrants are dying before they can complete the journey to what they hoped would be a better life. (NBC News)

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