Migrants Gone Missing on US-Mexico Border: Healing and Closure, Thanks to Science Yael Grauer - TakePart
go to original June 11, 2015

Colibri Center for Human Rights: Death and Disappearance on the Border (Colibri Center for Human Rights)

When a U.S. citizen files a missing persons report with their local police department, a series of events is usually triggered: DNA samples can be taken, key information is analyzed using an international database, and psychosocial support is often offered. But for many Central American families whose loved ones have gone missing while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, that process is virtually nonexistent.

“The position of these families makes their search incredibly difficult because it’s across international borders, or just borders of invisibility and marginalization within the United States,” says Robin Reineke, cofounder and executive director of Tucson, Arizona-based Colibri Center for Human Rights.

Formed in 2006 and located inside the Pima County medical examiner’s office, Colibri assists families by collecting detailed missing persons reports and working with forensic scientists to help identify those who have died along the U.S.-Mexico border. With over 2,000 records on missing persons, the center’s database is the largest of its kind in the nation, and the only one that is neither country nor region-specific and open to all families regardless of citizenship or nationality.

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