2021
April 2021
Migrant Deaths in Southern Arizona: Recovered Undocumented Border Crosser Remains Investigated by the Pima County Office of the Mexican Examiner, 1990-2020
Executive Summary
Thousands of undocumented border crossers have died while attempting to cross the US-México border since the 1990s. Prior studies have found that these deaths are a consequence of increased border enforcement efforts as well as of economic, political, and social conditions in immigrant-sending countries and in the United States. The present study contributes to this expanding body of literature. Drawing on data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME), we provide information on the recovery of human remains either known or believed to be of undocumented border crossers in southern Arizona between FY 1990 and 2020. We find that during this period the remains of at least 3,356 undocumented border crossers were recovered in the region, with the majority being found since 2005. US Border Patrol apprehensions, which immigration scholars often use as proxy for undocumented migration trends, have decreased in that agency’s Tucson Sector since the mid-2000s. However, the rate of recovered remains of undocumented border crossers has largely increased even as apprehensions have declined, which is a dynamic that suggests undocumented migration in southern Arizona has become increasingly dangerous. We also find that the remains of undocumented border crossers were increasingly recovered from more remote areas of southern Arizona over time, which further supports this assertion. The PCOME records we examined over our study period suggest that migrants who have died in southern Arizona are largely male (84%), and, among identified decedents, 20-49 years of age (82%) and from México (80%). Most perished due to exposure (38%) or an undetermined cause of death (48%), and were successfully identified post-mortem (64%). Nevertheless, as highlighted throughout this report, we find important changes in the breakdown of these factors across time, for which we offer possible explanations. Our hope is that policymakers and the public will consider the data presented in this report, as access to empirical evidence is crucial when formulating public policy and when addressing the root causes of critical social concerns such as border-crosser deaths along the US-México border.
Authors
Daniel E. Martínez, Associate Professor, School of Sociology; Co-Director, Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona
Robin C. Reineke, Assistant Research Social Scientist, The Southwest Center, University of Arizona
Geoffrey Boyce, Academic Director, Border Studies Program, Earlham College
Samuel N. Chambers, Associate, School of Geography, Development & Environment, University of Arizona
Sarah Launius, Associate, School of Geography, Development & Environment, University of Arizona
Bruce E. Anderson, Forensic Anthropologist, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Gregory L. Hess, Chief Medical Examiner, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Jennifer M. Vollner, Forensic Anthropologist, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Bruce O. Parks, Forensic Pathologist, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Caitlin C.M. Vogelsberg, Forensic Anthropologist, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Gabriella Soto, Visiting Faculty Fellow, Barrett, The Honors College, Arizona State University
Michael Kreyche, Mapping Coordinator, Humane Borders; Emeritus Professor, Libraries and Media Services, Kent State University
Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, Founding Director, Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona
Abril 2021
Muertes de migrantes en el sur de Arizona: Restos de indocumentados que cruzaban la frontera investigados por la Oficina del Médico Forense del Condado Pima, 1990-2020
Resumen Ejecutivo
Miles de indocumentados que cruzaban la frontera han muerto al tratar de cruzar la frontera entre EE.UU. y México desde la década de 1990. Estudios anteriores han hallados que estas muertes son una consecuencia de los esfuerzos para aplicar la ley en la frontera, así como también de las condicione económicas, políticas y sociales en los países desde los cuales llegan los inmigrantes y en los Estados Unidos. Este estudio contribuye a este corpus literatura en expansión. Con base en los datos de la Oficina del Médico Forense del Condado Pima (PCOME, por sus siglas en inglés), proporcionamos información sobre la recuperación de restos humanos que se sabe o se cree que son de indocumentados que cruzaban la frontera en el sur de Arizona entre los años fiscales 1990 y 2020. Hallamos que durante este periodo se recuperaron los restos de al menos 3,356 indocumentadas que cruzaban la frontera, la mayoría de los cuales se encontraron a partir de 2005. Las detenciones por parte de la Patrulla Fronteriza de los EE. UU., que los estudiosos de la inmigración a menudo usan como equivalentes de tendencias de migración de indocumentados, han disminuido en el Sector Tucson de la agencia desde mediados de la década de 2000. Sin embargo, la tasa de restos humanos recuperados de indocumentados que cruzaban la frontera ha aumentado en gran parte, aunque las detenciones han disminuido, lo cual es una dinámica que sugiere que la migración de indocumentados en el sur de Arizona se ha vuelto cada vez más peligrosa. También hallamos que los restos de indocumentados que cruzaban la frontera se recuperaban cada vez más de áreas más remotas del sur de Arizona con el paso del tiempo, lo cual da mayor respaldo a esta afirmación. Los registros de la PCOME que examinamos a lo largo del periodo de nuestro estudio sugieren que los migrantes que han muerto en el sur de Arizona eran en su mayoría hombres (84%), y, entre los difuntos identificados, tenían de 20 a 49 años (82%) y provenían de México (80%). La mayoría murieron por exposición al medioambiente (38%) o una causa de muerte no determinada (48%), y fueron identificados satisfactoriamente luego de la muerte (64%). Sin embargo, como se destaca en todo este informe, hallamos importantes cambios en el desglose de estos factores a lo largo del tiempo, para lo que ofrecemos posibles explicaciones. Esperamos que los legisladores y el público consideren los datos que se presentan en este informe, pues el acceso a la evidencia empírica es crucial cuando se formulan políticas públicas y se tratan las causas raíz de inquietudes sociales críticas como la muerte de personas que cruzan la frontera a lo largo del límite entre EE. UU. y México.
Autores
Daniel E. Martínez, Profesor Adjunto, School of Sociology; Codirector, Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona
Robin C. Reineke, Científica Social Asistente de Investigación, The Southwest Center, University of Arizona
Geoffrey Boyce, Director Académico, Border Studies Program, Earlham College
Samuel N. Chambers, Colaborador, School of Geography, Development & Environment, University of Arizona
Sarah Launius, Colaboradora, School of Geography, Development & Environment, University of Arizona
Bruce E. Anderson, Antropólogo Forense, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Gregory L. Hess, Médico Forense Principal, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Jennifer M. Vollner, Antropóloga Forense, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Bruce O. Parks, Patólogo Forense, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Caitlin C.M. Vogelsberg, Antropóloga Forense, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Gabriella Soto, Profesor Becario Invitado, Barrett, The Honors College, Arizona State University
Michael Kreyche, Coordinador de Creación de Mapas, Profesor emérito, Libraries and Media Services, Kent State University
Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, Director Fundador, Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona
2020
August 24, 2020
Border Enforcement Developments Since 1993 and How to Change CBP
Executive Summary
Enforcement along the US-Mexico border has intensified significantly since the early 1990s. Social scientists have documented several consequences of border militarization, including increased border-crosser deaths, the killing of more than 110 people by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents over the past decade, and expanded ethno-racial profiling in southwestern communities by immigration authorities. Less attention has been paid to the pervasive and routine mistreatment migrants experience on a daily basis in CBP custody.
This paper traces major developments in border enforcement to three notable initiatives: the “prevention-through-deterrence” strategy, the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Consequence Delivery System, initiated in 2011. Despite the massive buildup in enforcement, CBP has operated with little transparency and accountability to the detriment of migrants. The paper provides an overview of the findings of nongovernmental organizations and social scientists regarding migrant mistreatment while in CBP custody. It then highlights important shifts in migration patterns over the past decade, as well as changes in border enforcement efforts during the Trump administration. It discusses how these transformations affect migrants’ everyday encounters with CBP officials.
The paper concludes by providing specific recommendations for improving CBP conduct. Its core theme is the need to emphasize and inculcate lessons of appropriate police behavior, civil rights, and civil liberties in training and recruiting agents and in setting responsibilities of supervisors and administrators. It offers recommendations regarding important but underrecognized issues, including ending the use of CBP agents/officers as Asylum Officers, as well as better-known issues such as militarization and the border wall.
Authors
Daniel E. Martínez, The University of Arizona
Josiah Heyman, The University of Texas at El Paso
Jeremy Slack, The University of Texas at El Paso
2019
October 2019
The Immigration Dragnet and the Dispossession of Household and Community Wealth in the United States
Introduction
The past three decades have witnessed a vast increase in immigration policing across the United States, involving an unprecedented number and variety of local, state and federal actors and agencies. When an individual is taken into immigration custody and then chooses to fight their immigration case, significant financial costs immediately begin to accumulate to themselves and to their household, as the latter struggles to provide material support in order to keep their family together. These financial costs range from assets seized at the moment of apprehension, to bonding a family member out of immigration detention, to hiring an attorney; as well as many other costs that emerge between and beyond these particular moments.
This report provides preliminary findings from a two-year research study funded by the National Science Foundation and undertaken in Tucson, Arizona. The research examined the financial costs that accumulate to U.S. households following the exposure of an immediate family member to immigration policing in the United States. The City of Tucson provided an ideal location for studying these costs; due to its location well north of the U.S. / Mexico border, but within the U.S. Border Patrol’s 100-mile enforcement jurisdiction, the city plays host to the full range of police agencies involved in the enforcement of immigration laws across the United States. After discussing the various pathways by which individuals find themselves placed into immigration detention and removal (deportation) proceedings, the report discusses the multiple kinds, costs and scope of the financial demands that immediately begin to burden their household. Next, the report examines the strategies mobilized by these households to manage and absorb these financial costs, and the downstream impacts these costs and strategies have on outcomes related to wealth, health, housing, education and employment.
As Congress and the Executive Branch continue to debate federal immigration policy, and as local jurisdictions wrestle with their own role and involvement in enforcing this policy, the data in this report provides insight into some of the most urgent challenges for mixed-status households in the United States. Our findings show that immigration police activity generates significant financial burdens on U.S. households, deepening inequalities of wealth and opportunity – all the while aggravating the emotional and psychological anguish that these activities produce. Notably, the impacts detailed in this report are not limited to non-citizens, or to those individuals specifically targeted by police agencies involved in U.S. immigration enforcement. Instead, these costs are absorbed by immediate and extended family members and social networks that include U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike, including many Lawful Permanent Residents. While the findings in this report are therefore relevant for understanding the impacts of current immigration policy, their implications extend beyond this policy domain to include issues of economic security, wealth inequality, and the long-term wellbeing of communities across the United States.
Authors
Geoffrey Alan Boyce
Sarah Launius
Octubre 2019
La red de captura de inmigrantes y el saqueo de recursos económicos de familias, hogares y comunidades en Estados Unidos
Resumen Ejecutivo
Este es un resumen del informe final de una investigación realizada entre enero 2017 a junio 2018 titulada “La red de captura de inmigrantes y el saqueo de recursos económicos de familias, hogares y comunidades en Estados Unidos” o en inglés, “The Immigration Dragnet and the Dispossession of U.S. Household and Community Wealth.” La investigación fue realizada por Elizabeth Oglesby y Geoffrey Boyce con fondos de la Fundación Nacional de la Ciencia o en inglés, National Science Foundation. Los resultados de la investigación incluyen: el cómo y porqué las personas son detenidas y/o terminan en un proceso de deportación; los distintos tipos de costos económicos y la cantidad promedio de estos costos; las estrategias que utilizan las familias para cumplir con estos costos; y los impactos que tienen estos costos sobre las familias y sus redes de apoyo.
Resumen completo en PDF.
Autores
Geoffrey Alan Boyce
Sarah Launius
2014
November 2014
Protocol Development for the Standardization of Identification and postmortem Examinations of UBC Bodies along the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Best Practices Manual
2013
June 2013
A Continued Humanitarian Crises on the Border: Undocumented Border Crosser Deaths Recorded by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner 1990-2012
About this Report
This report analyzes the numeric trends and demographic characteristics of the deaths of undocumented border crossers in the area covered by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner which is located in the city of Tucson, Arizona. This office provides medico-legal death investigation for the western two-thirds of the Tucson Sector’s southern border with Mexico (Anderson 2008) and has been the office responsible for the examination of over 95% of all migrant remains discovered in Arizona since 2003 (Coalición de Derechos Humanos 2013). The data for this report come from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner.
Authors
Daniel E. Martínez, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, The George Washington University
Robin C. Reineke, Doctoral Candidate, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona
Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, Adjunct Professor, Mexican American Studies Department, University of Arizona
Bruce E. Anderson, Forensic Anthropologist, Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Gregory L. Hess, Chief Medical Examiner Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner
Bruce O. Parks, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, University of Arizona
2006
October 2006
The "Funnel Effect" and Recovered Bodies of Unauthorized Migrants Processed by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2005
Report Submitted to the Pima Country Board of Supervisors
Authors
Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith
M. Melissa McCormick
Daniel Martinez
Inez Magdalena Duarte