No Shade, No Water, and Record Heat: More Migrants Die in US Desert Jose Luis Gonzalez and Daina Beth Solomon - Reuters
go to original October 14, 2023

Stairs used by migrants to cross into the United States from Mexico sit in the desert near the border as members of Mexican immigrant welfare agency Grupo Beta patrol outside Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Reuters)

In the last 12 months through September, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) logged 60 migrant deaths due to heat in the El Paso Sector, triple the same period a year ago.

The sector spans the Chihuahuan Desert through New Mexico and parts of Texas along 268 miles (431 km) of the border. It has been the busiest area for migrant crossings into the US southwest at a time when overall border apprehensions are on track to match or surpass record levels. Migrant advocates and academics have said for years that policies like increased fencing and checkpoints, intended to deter those aiming to cross illegally into the US, push migrants to take increasingly perilous routes to evade detection.

That includes ever-longer treks through remote stretches of desert where they are prone to exhaustion and dehydration.

Migrants can also be abandoned by human traffickers without water, or jammed into sweltering truck trailers. The 2022 death toll at the US-Mexico border prompted the UN migration agency to deem the area the world's deadliest land migration route.

As weather extremes are expected to worsen due to climate change, these journeys will likely only become riskier.

"Now it's going to be even worse because of the weather... it's an additional traumatic factor," said Fernando Garcia, head of the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, stressing that tougher border policies were still the main cause of the increase in deaths.

'Danger of Dying'

Heat-related deaths accounted for just under half the total migrant death toll in the El Paso Sector over the last 12 months.

Including other causes such as car accidents and drowning, the total number of migrant deaths doubled from the prior year to reach a record of 148 fatalities.

That number could be well below the true figure, with migrant advocates and Congress' own investigative arm contending CBP undercounts migrant fatalities.

CBP said last year in response to the report to Congress that it was working to improve its data, which comes from law enforcement, fire departments and first responders, including Border Patrol agents.

Its website states that it aims to "track this information as fully and accurately as possible," while recognising "these data are not all encompassing."

In response to questions from Reuters, CBP said it urges migrants to use lawful pathways and noted illegal crossings are "inherently dangerous."

Read the rest at Reuters

Related: Judge Denies Bid to Prohibit US Border Officials From Turning Back Asylum-Seekers at Land Crossings (Associated Press)

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