Threat of US-Mexico Border Wall Intensifies Search for Dying Migrants Jean Guerrero - KPBS Fronteras
go to original December 13, 2016

KPBS Fronteras reporter Jean Guerrero explores the consequences of existing border barriers – and what may happen if they expand – as she joins the search for a migrant’s body. (KPBS News)

I scan the earth for human skeletons along one of the deadliest smuggling routes just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Cattle skulls grin without teeth; a scorpion crawls over twigs; the ribbed skin shed by a snake crackles under my boots.

We are searching for Marco Antonio Garcia, a 20-year-old Mexican who vanished after entering the U.S. illegally through the Arizona desert on July 26. He wanted to earn U.S. dollars to send his wife and newborn. Donald Trump had not yet been elected president, but word of his proposed border wall — “el muro,” in Spanish — had reached Mexico City. Garcia crossed on foot and alone, in a hurry, using a smuggler who guided him by phone.

He was carrying a cell phone, a gallon of water and a Bible. We expect he will be dead.

A self-described drug mule called Garcia’s family from the young man’s phone a few weeks after his crossing, saying he had come across his decomposing body — and phone — in the Tohono O’Odham Indian Nation.

Garcia’s great-uncle, Máximo Garcia — whom I call “Don Máximo,” a customary Mexican title for elders — hikes with us. He shows me a cryptic text message from the drug mule:

Buskelo por el arroyo del coyote asia la linea por donde estan unos corrales

“Look for him in the coyote arroyo near the border by some fencing,” it reads in misspelled Spanish.

It is a crucial clue about Garcia’s whereabouts. Men who call themselves Aguilas del Desierto, or Eagles of the Desert, have volunteered to search for him here, in the Coyote Arroyo. We are spread out in a line that intersects the dry riverbed. The volunteers — mostly immigrants who live in San Diego — have invited me to document the search.

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