As US-Mexico Border Arrests Drop, Are Number of Deaths Rising? Heather Moore - CBS5 News
go to original September 17, 2013

The bodies of people believed to have died crossing the border into the U.S. stack up in a cooler in Pima County. (CBS5 News)
 
PIMA COUNTY, AZ - For the past several years, the number of arrests of people coming in to the United States illegally from Mexico has been dropping dramatically.

One might think that means fewer people are dying while trying to make it to the U.S., but at least one organization said that's not the case. And it has the bodies to prove it.

Inside a giant cooler in Pima County are rows and rows of body bags stacked almost to the ceiling.

For nearly half of them, who they are and how they died are mysteries.

"The number one cause of death that we had last year was undetermined," said Dr. Gregory Hess, the Pima County medical examiner.

Hess said nearly all of the bodies and remains found along Arizona's border with Mexico end up in his office, where his staff does its best to make an identification from the bones, DNA and from a few personal effects found with the bodies.

Hess said that this year he's seen the number of dead increase significantly.

Read the rest at CBS5 News

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