Forensic Experts Lead Families to Remains of Missing Migrants on US-Mexico Border Lorne Matalon - Fronteras
go to original May 28, 2015

'Nobody Cares About Dead Immigrants' (The Guardian)

This is a story about heat, desperation and border policy.

Brooks County, Texas — 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border — has seen at least 365 migrant deaths since 2011.

Forensic anthropologists in Texas and Arizona are working to identify these migrants and repatriate their remains.

Behind an electronic gate accessed by a key card on a bucolic farm in central Texas, 100 cadavers donated for research by U.S. citizens lie on the ground in different stages of decomposition.

Forensic anthropologist Kate Spradley heads a relatively new project called Operation ID at Texas State University’s Forensic Anthropology Center in San Marcos, Texas.

“When someone dies on U.S. soil, it is our responsibility to identify that person,” she said while walking in the shade where cadavers lay on the ground, protected by metal screens.

Specifically, Spradley collects data on the rate of decay on these cadavers. It’s part of her research in determining a migrant’s time of death.

Read the rest at KBPS.org

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